A 10-year-old Rockville boy
died Monday evening after being pulled out of a sediment
pond in Gaithersburg’s new
Crown Farm neighborhood.
The boy, identiﬁed on Tuesday as D’Angelo Jayvon McMullen, of the 10100 block of Reprise
Drive, died at about 7:46 p.m.
Monday after being taken to a
local hospital in critical condition, according to Montgomery
County Fire and Rescue Assistant Chief Scott Graham.
“They were kids, just playing,” Graham said of the three
boys whom rescue personnel
were called to save Monday at
about 4:15 p.m.
The pond was iced over,
but not thick enough to support
their weight.
“The takeaway here is that
TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE

Montgomery County Council President Craig Rice (left) of Germantown and Greg Ten Eyck of Safeway wheel donations collected for the families affected
by last week’s Cider Mill Apartments ﬁre in Montgomery Village to a waiting van Monday outside of the Goshen Oaks Safeway in Gaithersburg. Rice,
radio station WPGC, Women Who Care Ministries, Safeway and other community volunteers coordinated the effort.

Community activists
ask residents to give

n

BY

SYLVIA CARIGNAN
STAFF WRITER

One week after Lancelot Quarshie celebrated his fourth birthday, he was gone.
Lancelot died in a two-alarm blaze in
Montgomery Village on Jan. 8, leaving his
family — and their community — in shock.
The fire displaced 40 residents and
sent four people to the hospital. According to his aunt, Francesca Jones, Lancelot’s
parents are not sure how the ﬁre started
and are waiting for an ofﬁcial report from

county investigators.
Lancelot’s death has been hard for his
father, Samuel Quarshie, to handle, she
said. Samuel was asleep in the apartment
with Lancelot when the ﬁre started, and he
was unable to get his son out.
“He is very devastated,” Jones said. “He
is not in his full mind. I’m sure anyone in
his position would feel the same way.”
Jones remembers seeing smoke in the
sky from her workplace on Interstate 270
before getting the news. Lancelot’s mother
and Jones’ sister, Nana Sarpong, called her.
“She was yelling and screaming,” she
said. “I was in shock.”
Lancelot’s parents have declined to talk
to The Gazette.

On Monday afternoon at a Safeway
store in Gaithersburg, volunteers from
Montgomery Village and Germantown
handed shoppers wish lists. Nonproﬁt organizations and radio station staff set up
booths to help raise awareness about the
ﬁre and displaced residents’ needs.
Judith Clark, executive director of
Women Who Care Ministries, said that
about $500 was collected in the ﬁrst hour
of fundraising in front of the grocery store.
“We’re getting a really good community response,” she said.
She said her organization collected
more than $2,000 in food donations, about

See ANSWERS, Page A-10

Capital budget to focus on schools, roads
n

Spending plan outlines proposed
six-year schedule for county
BY

RYAN MARSHALL
STAFF WRITER

Montgomery County will pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the White
Flint area in an effort to promote private
growth and redevelopment around the
Metro station there as part of the capital
budget proposed by County Executive Isiah
Leggett.

Almost $340 million of public money
will be dedicated to generating private investment of even more money in White
Flint, according to a draft copy of the proposed budget provided to the Gazette.
The six-year capital improvement plan
features plans to construct a new road and
bike lane on the area’s Main/Market St.,
reconﬁguring Executive Boulevard North
and reconﬁguring the intersection of Old
Georgetown Road, Executive Boulevard
and Hoya Street.
The project includes $170 million in
county funding for road projects on Mon-

trose Parkway East and Chapman Avenue
Extended and relocating the White Flint
Fire Station in efforts to promote redevelopment in the area.
The Montrose Parkway East portion
will build a new road to connect with the
existing Montrose Parkway/Rockville Pike
interchange to Viers Mill Road.
There are also plans to build a new
parking garage for a conference center in
the area to combine with future retail space
and areas for affordable housing.

See BUDGET, Page A-10

NEWS

SPORTS

County revenues are
running ahead of
projections, Leggett
says.

Northwood punter/lineman
suffers complications after
a season of playing football
with torn ACL.

D’Angelo Jayvon McMullen died Monday evening after being pulled out
of a sediment pond in Gaithersburg’s
Crown Farm neighborhood.
no ice in this region is going to
withstand human weight,” Graham said, warning people not to
go onto iced-over lakes or other
bodies of water even if they appear frozen over.
The two other boys also
were taken to a local hospital after being rescued from the pond

Two state senators — one
very liberal and the other very
conservative — have joined efforts in the Maryland General
Assembly to protect citizens’
privacy from police unnecessarily using technology like drones
to conduct searches.
Sens. Jamie B. Raskin and
Christopher B. Shank, with the
backing of the American Civil
Liberties Union, will introduce
four bills to regulate police use
of drones, automatic license
plate readers, email surveillance
and location tracking so as to
not infringe on privacy rights.
“It’s getting Orwellian out
there,” Raskin (D-Dist. 20) of Takoma Park told reporters Tuesday morning.
Shank (R-Dist. 2) of Hagerstown called the situation a
“slippery slope.”
“I am not content to sit here
and allow this current diminution of our privacy rights to get
to a point that one day my chil-

dren or grandchildren are going
to wake up and government is
constantly spying on them,” he
said.
Maryland last amended its
privacy laws in 1988, he said.
Yet technology has vastly
outpaced the law.
Raskin said the package of
privacy bills aims to create a
balance between law and technology.
Speciﬁcally, absent an emergency, the bills would require
search warrants before looking
at citizens’ emails and online
data as well as before tracking
someone via their cell phone. It
would impose limits and regulations on aerial surveillance by
drones and prevent police from
keeping, for longer than 90 days
without cause, the license plate
and location data collected by
the automatic scanners.
In the House, the bills are
cosponsored by Dels. Jeff Waldstreicher (D-Dist. 18) of Kensington, Alfred C. Carr Jr. (D-Dist.
18) of Kensington, Michael
D. Smigiel Sr. (R-Dist. 36) of
Chesapeake City and Samuel I.
“Sandy” Rosenberg (D-Dist. 41)
of Baltimore.
kalexander@gazette.net

Brigitte Shoff of Silver Spring pins the Silver Star onto the blazer of her father, retired Army Warrant Ofﬁcer George Carlton Bloodworth, during a ceremony last month at the Rockville ofﬁce of U.S. Rep. Christopher Van Hollen Jr. (third from left).
seriously wounded, reached the
pick up zone.”
Shoff said her father dedicated
himself to the military life. During
the award ceremony, he spoke of
many others who did much more
than he did.
“I wanted to do it for my father,” Shoff said of getting the
medal. “He is always doing things
for other people. He just did what a
hero does.”
— ALINE BARROS

Walter Reed wins
trauma center designation
Walter Reed National Military
Medical Center has become Montgomery County’s second Level 2
Trauma Center, joining Suburban
Hospital, after being veriﬁed by the
American College of Surgeons.
Both hospitals are in Bethesda.
The college’s committee on
trauma determined that Walter
Reed exceeded its requirements for
veriﬁcation. Only 155 U.S. medical centers have met the college’s
criteria.

Since 2001, Walter Reed, the
world’s largest joint military medical center, has cared for more than
5,000 veterans.
The designation reﬂects a patient-centered approach involving
more than 60 departments and services in the medical center, ranging
from audiology and nutrition to
pastoral care and surgical specialties, according to a news release.

Groups seek volunteers
to analyze school budget
The Montgomery County Civic
Federation, Montgomery County
Taxpayers League and Parents’
Coalition of Montgomery County
are gearing up for the second annual Budgetpalooza from 7 to 9
p.m. Feb. 5 at Rockville Memorial
Library, 21 Maryland Ave.
Volunteers will analyze the
$2.28 billion proposed Montgomery
County Public Schools ﬁscal 2015 operating budget chapter by chapter.
Volunteers are needed to
read and analyze chapters of the
budget. Those interested may

Club Matching Scholarship from
the National Italian American Federation. D’Affuso is a theater major
at the University of Maryland.
The Lido Civic Club, an ItalianAmerican group, helps recent immigrants assimilate to American
business.

CORRECTIONS
A Jan. 8 story about a Silver Spring land swap
that’s part of the Progress Place Project misstated
the number of apartments that will be created.
There will be 21.
A Jan. 8 story misidentiﬁed Eric Bernard, who is
the executive director of the Montgomery County
Volunteer Fire-Rescue Association. Marcine Goodloe is the association’s president. Also, the association, not the county, received grants to help bolster
volunteer ﬁreﬁghter recruitment.

Sometimes a daughter knows
best.
Brigitte Shoff of Silver Spring
had always heard about the medal
her father had earned after serving
in the Vietnam War. Still, Shoff had
never seen the medal, so she asked
him if he had ever received it.
He said no.
But on Jan. 2, Army Brig. Gen.
Jeffrey Clark, commander of Walter
Reed National Military Medical
Center in Bethesda, pinned the
Silver Star — the military’s thirdhighest decoration for valor — onto
the blazer of retired Army Warrant
Ofﬁcer George Carlton Bloodworth.
Shoff said that the end of the
war in 1975 was so turbulent that
her father never tried to get the
medal.
“Things were very chaotic,” she
said. “He transferred several times
and he just didn’t talk about.”
After reading a letter from
the Army Department citing her
father’s award, she contacted the
ofﬁce of Rep. Christopher Van Hollen Jr. (D-Dist. 8) of Kensington for
assistance.
Van Hollen’s staff contacted the
Army and the award ceremony was
scheduled when Bloodworth, who
lives in Georgia, came to visit his
daughter during the holidays last
month.
Bloodworth piloted one of the
two helicopters conducting a reconnaissance mission in northwest of
Cao Lanh on Sept. 20, 1969. One of
the helicopters was shot down and
despite imminent danger, Bloodworth kept searching for its crew.
He was wounded by ground
ﬁre, shot in the arm and back, but
he managed to ﬁnd the two soldiers on the ground and eventually
helped them to safety.
The Army letter, dated June.
20, 1970, reads: “Warrant Ofﬁcer
Bloodworth distinguished himself
by exceptionally valor actions ...
Although seriously wounded, he
continued to engage the enemy until his comrades, one of whom was

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A nonprofit environmental advocacy group has notiﬁed the Washington Suburban
Sanitary Commission that it
could sue the agency because
it lacks a state permit for the
Potomac Water Filtration Plant
in Potomac.
“It is also called a 60-day
letter,” said Matthew Logan,
president of Potomac Riverkeeper, which is dedicated to
protecting the water quality of
the river. “It says we are concerned about this and if there
is not action we intend to ﬁle a
lawsuit.”
The plant ﬁlters about 120
million gallons of water per
day, Logan said. In all, the Potomac supplies water to more
than 4.8 million Washingtonarea residents.
Logan said his organization is monitoring the commission’s work at the ﬁltration
plant, including the quality of
the water returned to the river
after ﬁltration and sludge disposal.
“Riverkeeper’s issue now
with WSSC [is] since 2002
WSSC is operating without a
permit [from the Maryland
Department of Environment].
They keep getting an administrative extension,” Logan said.
“They have a new sludge handling facility [at the plant] and
the permit conditions have not
been modified. They need a
new permit that deals with the
current discharges.”
Jerry Irwin, public affairs
manager for WSSC, said the
plant is operating on a permit
originally issued to expire May
31, 2002.
“An application for the renewal of our permit with MDE
is currently pending, and we
look forward to continuing our
dialogue with MDE about the
terms and conditions of a renewed permit,” he wrote in an
email.
Logan and Diane Cameron,
conservation program director
for the Audubon Naturalist Society, gave a state of the local
water supply talk at the January
meeting of the West Montgomery County Citizens Association meeting Wednesday at the
Potomac Community Recreation Center.
WMCCA President Ginny
Barnes said the Watts Branch

Bill could lead to
replacement of two major
pipes in Gaithersburg
n

BY JENN DAVIS
STAFF WRITER

Ginny Barnes stands at the Watts Branch Creek behind her home on Glen Road in Potomac.
stream ﬂows into the Potomac
River just above the WSSC Potomac ﬁltration plant’s current
intake valve, and the commission is looking to move that
valve farther out into the river
in a search for a cleaner water
source.
“... Their proposal to seek a
mid-river intake ...[is] because
sediment pollution coming
from development projects
upstream in Watts Branch ... is
too heavy to assure treatment,”
Barnes wrote in the January
newsletter of WMCCA.
WSSC’s Potomac Water
Filtration Plant withdraws untreated water that contains suspended solids — dirt and algae
— from the Potomac River and
ﬁlters and puriﬁes this water to
provide safe and clean drinking water. A large portion of
these solids that are removed
from the untreated river water
plus coagulating agents added
during the ﬁltration process is
hauled away from the plant on
trucks, Irwin said in an email.
“The remaining solids that
we remove from the river water plus added coagulants we
discharge back into the Potomac from which the solids
originated. WSSC believes that
these discharges during normal operations and high volume rain events comply with
WSSC’s existing permit issued

by the Maryland Department
of the Environment (MDE),”
he wrote.
Cameron gave the group an
overview of the Ten Mile Creek
watershed in Germantown and
the ﬁght now waging between
conservationists and developers over the amount of development to be allowed next to
the creek’s buffer zone.
The watershed is unique
in its geology, soils and biodiversity, Cameron said, all good
reasons to preserve it, but it
is also the cleanest source of
drinking water going into Little
Seneca Reservoir in Black Hill
Regional Park in Boyds.
The reservoir was created
in the 1980s for use by the
WSSC as an emergency water
supply for the area in case of
drought.
“One day after a release
the water reaches the Potomac
River,” Cameron said.
The most effective way to
keep the river and drinking
water pollutant free is with forested buffers around wetlands,
streams and rivers, Barnes
wrote in the citizens association’s January newsletter. Limiting the amount of impervious
surfaces in watersheds also
helps in that effort.
“The chemicals on your
lawn and the pesticides on
your plants are eventually

DAN GROSS/THE GAZETTE

washed into the nearest steam
and travel via gravity to the
Potomac River and eventually
the Chesapeake Bay,” Barnes
wrote.
Shawn Justement, past
president of association, said
he thought the meeting addressed important issues.
“This was very good,” he
said. “Both issues are huge as
far as we’re concerned. We’ve
seen the streams, ... Piney
Branch, ... Watts Branch, degraded even though we have
fought to protect them.”
Ananda Vrindavan, attending her ﬁrst meeting as a member of WMCCA, said she found
the meeting very informative.
“It’s good to know what is
going on, the different types of
pollutants and how important
it is for us to protect our neighborhoods,” she said. “We are all
in this together; it will affect us
eventually.”
Ginny Barnes, president of
WMCCA, said she arranged for
Logan and Cameron to speak
at the meeting because water is
so important and clean water is
not to be taken for granted.
“We don’t even stop to
think [water] might be endangered,” she said. “You can’t take
it for granted. If you want clean
water you have to ﬁght for it.”
pmcewan@gazette.net

Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission and the city of
Gaithersburg are at odds over
a bicounty bill that, if passed,
could lead to the replacement
of two aging water mains underneath the new Crown Farm
community.
Westbrook Partners, one
of the developers handling the
Crown site at Fields Road and
Sam Eig Highway, are concerned about two large water
mains below Neighborhood 3,
which is slated for future residential, transit and school development. Construction has not
begun on that portion of Crown,
but units in the other two-thirds
of the Gaithersburg site have
been built.
The mains, 36 inches and
60 inches in diameter, were installed in the 1960s. According to
Gary Gumm, a chief engineer at
Washington Suburban Sanitary
Commission, large mains can
fail “catastrophically.” Large
mains can break apart and cause
an explosion that can throw debris over 200 feet, according to
WSSC documents.
Westbrook offered to pay
$3 million for new water mains
back in June, but only if the
company was reimbursed
through credits. At the time,
WSSC spokesman Jerry Irvine
said the Crown development did
not qualify for those credits.
As a result, members of the
Prince George’s and Montgomery County delegations drafted a
bill to help area developers work
with WSSC’s aging infrastructure.
Under current law, WSSC
can allow a developer to design
and construct any on-site or offsite facility, such as water mains,
that are necessary for the developer’s project. In turn, once
WSSC approves the newly constructed facility, it must accept
the addition as part of its system
and grant the developer a credit
against the system development
charge equal to the cost of con-

structing the facility.
The bill, sponsored by Del.
James W. Gilchrist (D-Dist.
17) of Rockville, would extend
further to allow developers’
upgrades to existing facilities
to qualify as projects that are
eligible for system development
charge credits.
With the Crown development situation speciﬁcally ins
mind, Gaithersburg Mayor
Sidney A. Katz expressed the
city’s support of the bill at a
Dec. 4 hearing in Rockville. He
explained how the Crown issue could beneﬁt from the bill,
which if passed, would help the
developer proceed with the original offer to install new mains.
“WSSC would own two new,
safe water mains not funded
through bonds or the ratepayer general fund ... instead
of the existing 55-year-old and
45-year-old pipes,” he said.
“The [Crown] project would
proceed as originally planned
and approved by the city, with
the public safety factor mitigated and new ratepayers on
board.”
He also said that the new
pipes, which go through Montgomery County’s Life Sciences
Center, would be useful for future redevelopment plans at
that location.
WSSC spokesman Jim Neustadt said the utility company’s
commissioners voted Nov. 20
to oppose the bill, arguing that
changing the system development charge policy to help out
with situations like the one at
Crown would be a misuse of the
system.
“This is not what the system
was set up for,” he said. “It is
designed for increasing capacity and encouraging growth, not
maintenance.”
Westbrook Partners Executive Vice President Bobby Zeiller
could not be reached for comment by press time Tuesday.
The legislation is set to be
discussed at a meeting before
the Montgomery County delegation in Annapolis, but the date
has not yet been scheduled, according to Gaithersburg’s Legislative Affairs Manager Monica C.
Sanchez.
jedavis@gazette.net

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Public Service Commission
granted Gaithersburg’s
petition to intervene
BY JENN DAVIS
STAFF WRITER

Frustrated with Pepco’s latest
request to charge ratepayers more,
Gaithersburg ofﬁcials ﬁled a petition in December opposing the increase and received permission to
intervene from the Maryland Public
Service Commission Jan. 7.
Pepco ﬁled a case with the Public Service Commission on Dec. 4
for $43.3 million more in base distribution rates, a hike of $4.80 on
the average customer bill. This is
the company’s third rate increase
request since 2011. Pepco is seeking

the increase to recover the cost of
providing service and to give a fair
rate of return on capital to its investors.
City Attorney Lynn Board announced Pepco’s intentions to the
City Council at a Dec. 16 meeting.
She said the city is concerned about
the increased power costs.
Board noted speciﬁcally that the
rate to power street lights, which
is separate from residential unit
charges, would increase by 12 percent under Pepco’s proposal, costing the city an additional $24,000
per year.
“That would be a total of an 18
percent rate increase from August
2012, when we last negotiated the
rates with Montgomery County,
Rockville and Pepco,” she said.
Councilwoman
Cathy
Drzyzgula said she agreed the city

ONLINE EXTRA
n Citizens group to take part in
Pepco rate case
www.gazette.net

needed to take action.
“I think we do have to take a
stand,” she said. “If this is how
Pepco’s going to act, then we have
to respond.”
The proposed rate increase
would take effect July 4.
The commission recently set a
hearing schedule for the case, with
a plan for hearings to be held on 10
days between April 22 and May 5. At
that time, Board will go before the
commission to present the city’s arguments.
Public hearings in both Mont-

gomery and Prince George’s counties will also be scheduled so that
Pepco customers can ask questions
and share their opinions before a
ﬁnal decision is made. The public
hearing dates and locations are yet
to be announced.
The utility’s request comes less
than five months after the Public Service Commission raised the
company’s base rates and broke
with precedent to grant it the ﬁrst
upfront surcharge in the state. In
that case, Pepco was granted $27.9
million of a $60.8 million request for
higher rates as well as $24 million of
a $192 million surcharge the company asked to levy on top of what
customers already pay.
In August, Gaithersburg decided to join Montgomery County
in its appeal of that Pepco rate case,
The Gazette previously reported.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014 p

InBrief
Health nonproﬁt names
three board members
Mobile Medical Care of Bethesda, a nonproﬁt health care provider to nearly 6,000 lowincome Montgomery County residents, named
three new board members: Dr. Carlos Picone,
Wendy Krasner and Barbara Wolf.
Picone, who has volunteered at the nonproﬁt since 2007 and been on medical missions
in Latin America, is certiﬁed in internal medicine, pulmonology and critical care medicine.
He works at Chevy Chase Pulmonary Associates
and Sibley Memorial Hospital.
Krasner is vice president of regulatory affairs
at the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association and has more than 30 years of experience in federal health care programs.
Wolf, who retired in 2010 after a career in
banking, serves on the donor relations committee of the Gettysburg (Pa.) Hospital Foundation
and previously chaired the development committee of the Montgomery County Coalition for
the Homeless.
MobileMed was founded in 1968 by George
Cohen and Arnold Meyersburg, both physicians. Its mission is to improve the health of
low-income people who face barriers to care.

County honors King with service day

DAN GROSS/THE GAZETTE

Randy Bryan of Coca-Cola sets the mixture for the different types of soda in the upstairs bar of the new Largent’s Restaurant and Bar in the Kentlands in Gaithersburg.

New Kentlands eatery set to open
Restaurant gets $10,000
city grant to add bathroom

n

BY JENN DAVIS
STAFF WRITER

Despite several delays during the remodeling
process, restaurateur Matt Largent hopes to have
his new Kentlands restaurant up and running by
Feb. 1.
The Germantown resident signed a 10-year
lease in March on the building at 654 Center
Point Way in Gaithersburg.
His plan has been to completely renovate the
space and create a neighborhood eatery called
Largent’s Restaurant and Bar. The restaurant
was originally scheduled to open last August, but
a couple of unexpected delays pushed back the
opening.
“Mainly the delays have just been trying to
remodel,” he said. “There were a lot of things that

were not up to current code. Now we’re just trying to get inspections completed.”
While some residents believe the space is
“cursed,” — the space has seen four tenants
come and go in the past dozen years — Largent
said he thinks the other establishments did not
have the right business models for the Kentlands
community.
The restaurant will not be a sports bar, but it
will welcome fans with plenty of televisions for
big games, according to Largent. The ﬁrst ﬂoor
will be more family oriented, and the main bar
will be relocated to the second ﬂoor.
Largent speciﬁcally chose the Kentlands location because its small community feeling reminded him of his upbringing in Damascus. He
wants the restaurant to be geared toward both
children and adults.
“The Kentlands is a very family oriented
neighborhood and that’s where we want to be,”
he said. “The atmosphere is going to be more of
a neighborhood restaurant.”

One previous problem with the eatery’s
structure was a lack of sufﬁcient bathroom space.
Largent said adding bathrooms was already part
of his plan, but the city of Gaithersburg offered to
help pay for them.
“The city has long considered this design
ﬂaw to be both an inconvenience for patrons as
well as a detriment for the space’s marketability,”
Economic Development Director Tom Lonergan
said in March.
Since then, Largent applied for one of the
city’s toolbox grants, which are designed to provide economic development incentives to businesses that exhibit growth potential, and provide
stable, well-paying jobs.
While the location of Largent’s eatery typically does not qualify for retail support, Lonergan
said the city decided to award the $10,000 grant
because of Largent’s substantial investment in
the stucture and the space’s large size.
A grand opening celebration will be planned
once the restaurant ofﬁcially opens, Largent said.

Man charged with killing friend with claw hammer
Man waiting extradition
from New York to Maryland
n

BY

PETER HERMANN

THE WASHINGTON POST

A 31-year-old man has been
charged with manslaughter after authorities said he killed his
friend with a claw hammer during a dispute while climbing in the
Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National
Historic Park.
David DiPaolo of Bristow, Va.,
was arrested Jan. 8 during a trafﬁc
stop near Glens Falls, N.Y. Police
said the attack occurred Dec. 28
in the park near Carderock, in the

8800 block of Clara Barton Parkway
in Bethesda.
The victim, identiﬁed by U.S.
Park Police as Geoffrey Farrar, 69,
of Arlington, died at Suburban
Hospital in Bethesda shortly after
being airlifted there, according to
the criminal complaint ﬁled in U.S.
District Court in Maryland. Documents ﬁled in federal court describe
the two men as friends for 20 years.
Court documents say that
DiPaolo and Farrar were hiking and
climbing in the park with at least two
other friends, who witnessed them
arguing in the parking lot before setting off to climb a rock cliff along the
edge of a Potomac River tributary.
The court documents state that

the two friends went to the top of
the rock face to secure climbing
ropes, but when they looked over
the edge, they didn’t see anyone.
They walked to the bottom and saw
DiPaolo running up the trail, wearing a green hooded sweatshirt, a
white and black shoe and carrying
an orange camouﬂage backpack,
according to the court documents.
Police said the two friends
found Farrar lying on the trail and
bleeding from the head. The court
documents said an autopsy performed by the Maryland Medical
Examiner’s Ofﬁce found that the injuries were not consistent with a fall.
The victim had injuries to his head
and hands that police said matched

a silver-colored claw hammer that
was found on the ground nearby.
According to the court documents, DiPaolo told police that Farrar tried to choke him at the base of
the cliff, and that the two fell to the
ground and rolled over. Fearing he
was about to lose consciousness,
DiPaolo told police that he hit the
victim in the head with the claw
hammer, according to the criminal
complaint.
“DiPaolo insisted that the victim had his hands around DiPaolo’s
neck the entire time,” police wrote
in the court documents. The suspect told police: “I’m sorry this happened. I didn’t want it to happen. I
didn’t know it was going to happen.

Implant $1255
Abutment &
Implant Crown
1912212

$998

Montgomery County will mark Martin Luther
King Jr. Day on Monday by collecting donated
food and items for the homeless at four sites.
Nonperishable food donations will go to
Manna Food Center in Gaithersburg. The donation and distribution of sleeping bags, blankets
and socks for the homeless are being organized
by the Tri-Sigma Chapter of Phi Beta Sigma
Fraternity.
Also, Montgomery County’s Volunteer
Center will coordinate indoor family-friendly
service projects from 1 to 3 p.m. at the county
conference center at 5701 Marinelli Road in
North Bethesda. Projects will include tying
paracord bracelets for military members, preparing bagged lunches for county shelters and
creating ﬂeece blankets for Montgomery Hospice. Information and registration is at www.
montgomeryserves.org.
Food and other donations may be dropped
off at the conference center and these other service day sites: Seneca Creek Community Church
in Gaithersburg, from 9 to 11 a.m.; the Silver
Spring Civic Building from 10 a.m. to noon, organized by the Montgomery County Alumnae
Chapter, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority; and the
International Cultural Center in Montgomery
Village, from 3 to 5 p.m.
A number of organizations are holding environmental cleanup projects this weekend. More
information is at www.montgomeryserves.org
and montgomeryparks.org/team/mlk_jr_day.
shtm, or by contacting Henry Coppola at henry.
coppola@montgomeryparks.org or 301-4952476.
All activities are approved for student service learning hours.
Information: servicedays@montgomerycountymd.gov or 240-777-2600.
The 20th anniversary tribute and musical
celebration in King’s honor will be at 3 p.m.
at the Music Center at Strathmore in North
Bethesda. The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required and may be reserved
at www.strathmore.org.
For more information about the musical
celebration, contact Yvonne Stephens at 240567-4203 or Yvonne.stephens@montgomerycollege.edu, or Julian Norment at 240-777-8413 or
julian.norment@montgomerycountymd.gov.

POLICE BLOTTER

Complete report at www.gazette.net
The following is a summary of incidents in the Potomac
area to which Montgomery County police responded
recently. The words “arrested” and “charged” do not imply
guilt. This information was provided by the county.

Armed robbery
• On Dec. 21 at 10:10 p.m. in the 7500 block of
Spring Lake Drive, Bethesda. The subjects threatened
the victims with a weapon and took property.
• On Dec. 24 at 2 p.m. in the 7100 block of Democracy Blvd., Bethesda. The subject threatened the victim
with a weapon and took property.
• On Dec. 30 at 6:15 p.m. in the 6700 block of Kenwood Forest Lane, Bethesda. The subject threatened the
victim with a weapon and took property.
Auto theft
• On Dec. 17 at 1:45 a.m. in the 11900 block of
Hunters Lane, Rockville.
Bank robbery
• On Dec. 16 at 4:30 p.m. at M&T Bank, 7920 Norfolk Ave., Bethesda.
• On Dec. 20 at 4 p.m. at Wells Fargo, 10305 Westlake Drive, Bethesda. The subjects threatened the victims with a weapon and took property.

About seven months after parents
raised concerns, Montgomery County
Public Schools Superintendent Joshua
P. Starr has developed a plan that could
pay more than 100 students who participated in Rock Terrace School’s workstudy programs.
The Rockville school serves developmentally disabled students, and the
Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s
Ofﬁce is investigating the staff’s handling of work-study payments.
Starr will present his plan to the
county school board Tuesday along
with other information about the
school’s work-study programs.
He previously said the school system would wait for the conclusion of
the state’s attorney’s investigation, but
in his letter Starr said he thinks waiting for the investigation before acting
would “delay resolution of this matter
indeﬁnitely.”
In early December, the school
board requested a plan from Starr.
Under his plan, the total payout
by the school system would be about
$30,000 to $35,000 to students who participated in the program as far back as
2006, said Larry Bowers, chief operating
ofﬁcer for the school system.
Bowers said Rock Terrace staff
treated the money these students
earned as school program funds — an
interpretation school system ofﬁcials
does not agree with.
Similar work-study programs exist in the county’s high schools where
the money earned goes to the students,
Bowers said.
“It is my intent, my hope, and my
belief that this plan will go a long way in
restoring the parents’/guardians’ faith
in the school system’s ﬁnancial practices,” Starr said in a letter dated Jan. 14
to school board members.
School board President Phil Kauffman said Thursday he agreed with
Starr’s letter that the school system
shouldn’t wait, and that it’s not certain
the school system would have access to
the data.
“It’s not clear what we would be

1912377

Administrators have proposed a plan to pay more than 100 work-study students at Rock Terrace School in Rockville.
getting,” Kauffman said. “I think we
have enough information to proceed at
this time.”
School board member Rebecca
Smondrowski said Thursday she was
pleased the school system is “trying to
take as much action as possible.”
Should the school board approve
Starr’s plan, the school system would
base payments on whether students
worked inside or outside the school.
Students who took part in the
school’s Transition Services Unit work
program — an off-campus program
— would be paid an amount based on
information from W-2 statements generated through the school system’s payroll system.
Looking at W-2 forms that were
available from 2006 onward, the school
system identified about 30 students
who participated in the transition program from 2006 to 2012 who would receive payments.
Of the 30 students, the school system found records of 19 who had bank

accounts at the Education Systems Federal Credit Union.
About 79 W-2 forms for these students — some of whom participated
in a program multiple times — include
payments ranging from about $11 to
more than $600.
For the last several years, students in
the off-campus program have received
$3.65 a day, according to Starr’s letter.
The school system is unable to tell
how much money was withdrawn from
these students’ bank accounts, Bowers
said.
“Although some of these funds may
have been withdrawn by the students
and their families, I have decided to
assume that all funds were withdrawn
by staff and used for program purposes
and that the students did not receive
any of the monies,” Starr said in the letter.
For students who took part in the
school’s on-campus programs — for
which ﬁnancial records are poor or incomplete — the school system would

2013 FILE PHOTO

provide a ﬂat payment of $200 to each
student, Bowers said.
For a period between 2008 and
2010, on-campus participants’ earnings were grouped together rather than
being deposited in individual bank accounts, according to Starr’s letter. The
school’s recordkeeping also made it unclear who withdrew funds or how they
were used.
About 75 students who worked in
these programs during that time frame
would receive the ﬂat payments, Bowers said.
In these on-campus programs —
which focused on culinary arts, ofﬁce
skills and woodworking — students
have received a variety of small payments over the years, sometimes based
on the student’s grade and sometimes a
ﬂat amount per class.
Montgomery County Public
Schools and the state’s attorney’s ofﬁce began investigating the Rockville
school after parents raised allegations
that staff misappropriated funds their

children earned.
Starr said in the letter he thinks that
waiting for the county State’s Attorney’s
Ofﬁce to complete its investigation before acting would “delay resolution of
this matter indeﬁnitely.”
“In addition, there is no guarantee
that MCPS would be successful in a
request that the court allow access to
these records,” he said in the letter.
During a November meeting of the
school system’s Special Education Advisory Committee, Starr said the school
system would hold off on any action
until the county State’s Attorney’s Ofﬁce ﬁnished its work.
“If this were just an easy ﬁx that had
one right answer, whether it’s reimbursement or something else, I would
have done it,” he said at the meeting.
Since the November meeting, Bowers said, more assessment has taken
place, including conversations with the
State’s Attorney’s Ofﬁce.
In his letter, Starr said the school
system consulted a tax attorney who
determined the money paid to Rock
Terrace students should not be considered taxable income or wages because
the primary purpose of the students’
experience was to train.
Chrisandra Richardson, associate
superintendent for special education
and student services, will put together
a work group that will study the school
system’s work-study programs and recommend whether students should continue to receive payments, according to
Starr’s letter.
Starr said he anticipates he will be
able to make a decision with the help of
the group’s recommendations before
the next school year starts.
The school system has suspended
payments to students in all high school
work-study programs, and Bowers said
those payments will not be reinstituted
this school year.
Kauffman said Thursday he thinks
the plan seems to outline “a reasonable
approach” for paying the students but
added he was looking forward to Tuesday’s meeting when the board would
hear more from school system staff and
have the opportunity to ask questions.
“It’s time to come to closure on this
and move on,” he said. “I think we owe
it to the community.”
lpowers@gazette.net

THE GAZETTE

Page A-6

Wednesday, January 15, 2014 p

Montgomery schools face tougher emergency drill rules
Schools will have to
conduct six, instead
of four, next year

n

BY

LINDSAY A. POWERS
STAFF WRITER

At least four times a year,
each public school in Montgomery County has practiced an
emergency drill to help prepare
staff and students for the worst,
from a tornado to an armed
shooter.
While Montgomery County
Public Schools has operated under its own mandate for at least
10 years, the school system will
face a new state requirement
next school year that calls for
six drills each year, according
to Bob Hellmuth, director of
school safety and security for the

school system.
Following the revision of
emergency plan guidelines for
Maryland schools in April 2013,
the Maryland State Board of
Education amended state regulations later in the year in part to
add a requirement that schools
must conduct drills for evacuation, “shelter in place,” reverse
evacuation, lockdown, severe
weather and “drop, cover, and
hold.”
The state expanded the
types of drills local school districts and schools must perform
to help them prepare for “a
broader range of emergencies,”
according to a May 21, 2013, letter from state Superintendent
Lillian M. Lowery to members of
the Maryland school board.
The change for Montgomery County next year, Hellmuth

said, will have to do more with
the number of drills rather than
their content.
“There’s not anything too
new to us,” he said.
County schools currently
have the authority to pick from
among three types of drills:
shelter, lockdown and evacuation. These drills cover a variety
of possible situations, including
weather incidents, Hellmuth
said.
Hellmuth said he could
not remember how the school
system decided to require
four drills rather than more or
less, but added he thought the
number has allowed for a good
amount of drill practice in the
school system and has not been
“overbearing.”
In a shelter drill, a school
will practice locking the exterior

doors and monitoring the entrances while teachers continue
to teach classes. Lockdown drills
involve securing a school’s interior doors, covering the windows and making classrooms
look unoccupied. To practice
evacuating, students exit the
building to meet at a designated
place on the campus.
For some drills, schools are
handed a speciﬁc scenario they
must react to, such as a bank
robbery nearby involving a suspect last seen heading toward
the school.
Schools also must conduct
10 ﬁre drills each year, a separate
requirement, Hellmuth said.
Some county principals said
the extra two required emergency drills will be helpful.
Scott Murphy, principal of
Watkins Mill High School in
Gaithersburg, said he thinks
four drills is an “appropriate”
number but that there’s always
room for more practice.
“Given the uncertainties in
today’s world, you can never
be prepared enough,” Murphy
said.
Following a drill, school staff
will conduct a debrieﬁng to evaluate their performance, he said.
“Drills are always a learning
experience,” he said.
Cheryl Clark, principal of
Lois P. Rockwell Elementary

in Damascus, said the school
conducts multiple drills each
year to prepare for emergencies, including weather-related
incidents.
Not long ago, Clark said, the
school dealt with an actual tornado warning for the area.
“I was glad that we had practiced,” she said.
More practice, she said, will
translate to students and staff
being more apt to follow procedures.
“Anytime that you do a drill
for safety reasons, when you’re
talking about large numbers
of kids in a building and large
numbers of staff, I think the
practice for safety precautions is
not a bad thing — it’s helpful,”
she said.
Clark added that the elementary school sees a new
group of young students each
year who could beneﬁt from the
practice.
Clark said she thinks the
state-mandated drills won’t
mark a signiﬁcant change for
county schools.
“It sounds like it is not that
different from what we’re doing,” she said.
Jimmy Sweeney, principal at
Rosemont Elementary School in
Gaithersburg, said he thinks six
drills might be too much.
“Four is plenty,” he said. “Six
actually seems excessive to me.”
Sweeney said he knows the
intentions behind the state requirement are good, but thinks

that students and staff know
what to do under the current
drill requirement.
Eric Wilson, principal of
Sligo Middle School in Silver
Spring, said that he thinks two
more drills will help students
and staff with mental and emotional preparedness, translating
to less anxiety should an actual
incident occur.
Wilson said each drill currently takes only about 15 to 20
minutes — with much of the
time devoted to monitoring that
the proper protocols are in place
— but more drills will mean “a
few more challenges.”
“It is going to be a challenge
to try and ﬁt them in and get
them scheduled,” he said.
Susan Burkinshaw — health
and safety committee cochairwoman of the Montgomery County Council of Parent
Teacher Associations — said
more drills will help students,
especially younger ones, be
more familiar with the procedures they should follow in an
emergency.
Some students might be absent when a school performs a
drill, and another two drills each
year could help prepare more
people, she said.
“When you’re stressed and
in a situation where there is a
real emergency, you fall back on
your training,” she said.
lpowers@gazette.net

Del. Luiz R.S. Simmons is
calling on his opponent in the
District 17 state Senate election
to keep the race clean.
Simmons of Rockville is running against former Del. Cheryl
Kagan for the Senate seat in the
June 24 Democratic primary.
The seat has been held the past
four terms by Sen. Jennie M.
Forehand (D) of Rockville, who
is not running for re-election in
2014.
Simmons issued Thursday
a “No Mudslinging in Maryland
Pledge” that asks candidates
and their campaign teams to
pledge to avoid personal and
character attacks, defamation,
false information, and distortions and misrepresentations of
an opponents’ records.
“The voters in District 17
deserve a campaign that is honest, fair and focuses on the issues. There is no place for the
politics of personal destruction
in this race,” Simmons said in a
statement Thursday. “I urge my
opponent, Cheryl Kagan to sign
this pledge today.”
Kagan, who ran against
Forehand in 2010, would not say
if she will sign.
But she characterized Sim-

mons’ personal and legislative
history as being “about mudslinging.”
“It’s disappointing that Del.
Simmons is focused on playing
politics when he is being paid to
focus on legislative business in
Annapolis,” Kagan said.
Kagan said she plans to run
an issue-based campaign.
After narrowly winning reelection in 2010, Forehand characterized the race as “nasty,”
telling The Gazette “negative
campaigning was something
we’d never had in our district,
and I thought it was inexcusable.”
At the time Kagan defended
her campaign saying it was more
informative than negative.
Simmons is not the ﬁrst candidate to call for keeping things
clean in 2014.
Attorney General Douglas F.
Gansler, who seeks the Democratic nomination for governor,
asked his opponents to pledge
to shun ads paid for by outside
groups, requiring those who violated the pledge to pay a penalty
to charity equal to half the cost
of the advertisement.
His
pledge
did
not
get
support.
Gansler’s opponent Lt. Gov.
Anthony G. Brown (D) countered with a “positive campaign
pledge” that also went unsupported.
kalexander@gazette.net

With the recent cold snap
still fresh in mind, the Montgomery County 100,000 Homes
Campaign has been working to
help the county’s homeless stay
off the streets.
The county’s campaign is
part of a national movement
of more than 200 communities
that works to ﬁnd permanent
homes for chronic and medically vulnerable homeless people.
Since the initiative began
in November, four street outreach programs have been
working to engage homeless

individuals and learn more
about them, according to
a news release. People Encouraging People Homeless
Outreach, Bethesda Cares,
Interfaith Works Community
Vision and the city of Gaithersburg have staff who spend
time talking with people living outside, with the focus of
learning about their needs and
directing them to safe housing.
A slight uptick in the number of homeless people seeking
out one shelter in Silver Spring
during the Jan. 7 arctic blast is
a small sign of success, according to Susanne Sinclair-Smith,
executive director of the Montgomery County Coalition for the
Homeless.
The Home Builders Care
Assessment Center for men,
operated by the coalition at
600B E. Gude Drive, welcomed
more people than the shelter

could hold. It has a capacity
of 135 men, but 160 sought
shelter there the night of Jan.
6, according to Sinclair-Smith.
Twenty-ﬁve of the men were
taken to East County Community Recreation Center in Silver
Spring for shelter overnight,
she said.
“We certainly saw more men
over this cold period,” she said.
“But we do not turn anyone
away. We encourage them to
come.”
Montgomery County police also has been periodically
checking known homeless encampments, monitoring the
welfare of those homeless individuals and encouraging them
to go to shelters, the news release said.
Looking to end homelessness, the County Council approved an appropriation Dec. 3
that gives $649,325 to the coun-

ty’s Department of Housing and
Community Affairs to provide
permanent housing with supportive services for 15 homeless
people classiﬁed as medically
vulnerable.
Montgomery County Council President Craig Rice (D-Dist.
2) of Germantown said the campaign’s efforts are a step in the
right direction.
“This county has done many
things over the years to help address our homeless population,”
he said. “The 100,000 Homes
Campaign targets a special segment of this population — a
population that has been difficult to reach. Through this
program, and the steps that are
being put in place, we now have
a better chance of letting them
tell us their needs and then directly working to ﬁnd housing
for these most vulnerable people.”

Floreen: Council will
‘see what happens’ in
ﬁnding successor
BY

RYAN MARSHALL
STAFF WRITER

Saying it’s time for a new
challenge, the chairwoman of
Montgomery County’s planning
board will not seek a second
term when her appointment
ends in June.
Francoise Carrier said Monday there’s no overriding reason
for her decision to leave the planning board. She just believed one
term was enough, she said.
While she called the job fascinating, Carrier said it was time
to ﬁnd something new.
Montgomery presents a lot
of planning challenges, with a
mix of rural, suburban and urban communities in a county
that’s constantly changing, she
said.
The county will need good

planning guidance as those
changes continue, Carrier said.
Councilwoman Nancy Floreen (D-At Large) of Garrett Park,
chairwoman of the council’s
Planning, Housing & Economic
Development Committee, said
Monday she thought Carrier had
done a tremendous job chairing
the planning board and helping
guide it through several master
plans and the ongoing rewrite of
the county’s zoning ordinance.
The rewrite has been an
enormous job, complicated by
the fact that the county switched
planning directors in the middle
of the process, Floreen said.
Floreen said everyone would
have to “see what happens” in
terms of ﬁnding a successor to
Carrier.
The chairman of the fivemember board is appointed by
the County Council and serves
four-year terms, spokeswoman
Bridget Schwiesow said.
The job will be posted, and
people will be able to apply for
the opening, she said.

Carrier was appointed as
chairwoman of the board by
the County Council in 2010,
succeeding two-term chairman
Royce Hanson.
Her term has included the
approval of master plans in
places such as Chevy Chase
Lake, Takoma/Langley, Glenmont, Long Branch and the
Countywide Transit Corridors
Functional Plan.
During her term, the board
also adopted a new Park and
Planning Master Plan, approved
park master plans and capital
programs and supervised the
renewed development of the
Montgomery Parks Foundation
to develop ﬁnancial support from
county residents and businesses.
Carrier graduated from
Stanford Law School with a
background in economics and
land use law, and before joining
the planning board worked as a
director and hearing examiner
for Montgomery County’s Ofﬁce of Zoning and Administrative Hearings.

nations.
Platelet donors, and blood
donors with the most in-demand blood types — O positive
and negative, A negative and B
negative — are needed to donate to help offset the shortfall.
“It’s the blood product already on the shelves that help
save lives when severe weather
hits,” said Linda Voss, CEO of
the Red Cross Greater Chesapeake and Potomac Blood Services Region.
Following Jan. 7’s big chill,
the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission saw a spike
in water main breaks. Spokeswoman Lyn Riggins reported
a total of 64 water main breaks
in Montgomery and Prince
George’s counties that needed
ﬁxing as of Thursday.

Warm Up With Our
Delicious Matzoh Ball Soup

Carrier to leave planning board
n

County ofﬁcials encourage
anyone in need of emergency
shelter to call the crisis center
at 240-777-4000. “Street cards,”
provided by the county, list
resources available for those
experiencing homeless in the
area.
With some of the harshest
weather this season now gone,
the American Red Cross is asking all eligible blood and platelet
donors to give blood to replenish the supply that went unﬁlled
during cold weather spurts this
month.
The Red Cross of the Chesapeake Region, which serves
Maryland, Washington, D.C.,
Northern Virginia, and York
and Adams counties in Pennsylvania, was forced to cancel 10
blood drives since Jan. 2 because
of the inclement weather. The
cancellations resulted in about
258 fewer blood and platelet do-

THE GAZETTE

Page A-8

Wednesday, January 15, 2014 p

County executive not rushing to boost funding
County revenues
are running ahead of
projections, Leggett says
n

BY

RYAN MARSHALL
STAFF WRITER

Montgomery County’s next
budget will likely keep funding
for services the same and could
even add money to some programs if financial conditions
warrant it, County Executive
Isiah Leggett (D) told residents
at a meeting Monday night in
Bethesda.
The county is on firm financial footing, Leggett said,
but that doesn’t mean the budget he’ll submit to the County

Council in March will rush increases in funding for programs
that saw their budget allotments
slashed during the recession.
The message echoed the one
Leggett expressed at a similar
public forum on the upcoming
budget in Germantown on Jan.
6: that an improving ﬁnancial
picture doesn’t mean the county
can get ahead of itself in restoring funding.
Leggett must submit his ﬁscal 2015 operating budget to
the County Council by March
17, and the council must pass a
budget by the end of May. The
ﬁscal year begins July 1.
The county’s ﬁscal 2014 operating budget was $4.8 billion,
with more than $2 billion allocated to Montgomery County

Public Schools.
This year’s budget discussions won’t feature the “doom
and gloom” tone of previous
years, when the county eliminated 10 percent of its work
force, furloughed employees
and took other steps to help
battle the economic downturn,
Leggett said.
The county’s revenues are
running ahead of projections,
and its AAA bond rating puts it
in a strong ﬁnancial position, he
said.
But the higher revenue projections have brought out a lot
of people who are anxious to
see funding put back into their
favorite programs.
“I’m not the only one who
sees and hears that good news,”

Leggett said, drawing a chuckle
from the crowd of about 50
people who turned out for the
forum at the Bethesda-Chevy
Chase Regional Services Center
in Bethesda.
One of those seeking more
money was Bethesda attorney
Charles Kauffman, a member of
the county’s Commission on Aging’s Public Policy Committee.
Kauffman asked Leggett to
include in his budget $200,000
in funding for a Caregiver Coalition and Support Service
and an increase in subsidies for
adult day care; a $210,000 annual increase for three years for
adult foster care in small group
homes; $90,000 to restore a fulltime position to the Long-Term
Care Ombudsman Program,

which provides advocates for
about 8,100 county residents
in assisted living facilities and
nursing homes; increased budget support for the county Recreation Department’s plan to
expand health and wellness
programs together with various
community groups; and restore
funding to the Housing Opportunities Commission that had
been eliminated as part of the
federal budget sequester process.
Ann Gibbons of Rockville
asked Leggett to consider increasing the county’s contribution to care for people with
autism.
Gibbons said her 25-yearold son is autistic and is cared for
by workers from the Commu-

nity Services for Autistic Adults
and Children, an organization
funded through a combination
of state and county money.
The workers currently make
about $3 above the minimum
wage, but Gibbons said she’s
concerned that with the county’s minimum wage set to rise
to $11.50 an hour by 2017, the
quality of workers they attract
will decrease unless the county
adds money so the group can
continue to pay above the minimum wage.
Leggett said the county has
had conversations with nonproﬁt groups to see how it can
help soften the blow of the minimum wage increase.
rmarshall@gazette.net

Leggett not backing a governor candidate yet At hearing, speakers say
County executive said
he respects, has ties to all
three top Democrats
n

BY

ANDREW SCHOTZ
STAFF WRITER

Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett — one of the
region’s highest-stature Democrats — is standing clear of his
party’s gubernatorial primary,
for now.
In a race among Lt. Gov.
Anthony G. Brown, Attorney
General Douglas F. Gansler
and Del. Heather R. Mizeur
(Dist. 20) of Takoma Park for
this year’s Democratic nomination, Leggett said Friday that he
hasn’t decided whom to support.
The primary will be held
June 24. The general election
will be Nov. 4.
Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) is
ﬁnishing his second term, the
maximum allowed in Maryland.
Asked during a meeting
with Gazette reporters and edi-

1912386

tors if he had an allegiance in
the race, Leggett said: “I have
none at this point. I’ll tell you
why. I hope and I anticipate that
I may endorse at some point in
the future, but I’m not sure.
“I’m very close to Heather,
very close to Doug, who I’ve
worked with on a number of
projects. They’re local Montgomery County residents. I
know Anthony very well. I support a great deal of what he’s
done.
“We are fortunate to have
several good candidates. I have
not found a justiﬁcation as to
how to make a distinction between one or the other at this
point in time. I talk to them a
great deal and it’s my intent,
and I hope to at some point, to
make an endorsement, but at
this point, not yet.”
Brown was the ﬁrst to release
a list of elected ofﬁcials in Maryland who back his campaign, including both U.S. senators and
four U.S. representatives. Maryland House Speaker Michael E.
Busch, Senate President Thomas

V. Mike Miller Jr., and several
Montgomery County ofﬁcials at
the state and local levels are on
the list, too.
Gansler’s endorsement list
includes about half of Montgomery County’s delegation
and county officials such as
State’s Attorney John J. McCarthy and Sheriff Darren M.
Popkin.
Mizeur’s support includes
current and past Takoma Park
leaders.
So far, Leggett said, he sees
nothing major that separates
the three candidates from each
other.
“For all the things that
you look at, there’s no major
distinction in terms of qualiﬁcation,” he said. “There’s no
major distinction in terms of
issues or political philosophy.
They’re all fairly well similar in
that regard. So, there’s nothing
that I see that would be a showstopper. ...
“They all support basically
the same kinds of ideas that I
think that move the state for-

ward. There’s no major distinction. The only distinction would
be, you know, maybe, leadership style or temperament.”
Asked when he expects
to make up his mind for an
endorsement, Leggett joked,
“Maybe around June the 25th.”
Leggett has no plans to take
any stances in state House or
Senate primaries, either. But
he does have a choice in the
attorney general’s race. He
has endorsed state Sen. Brian
E. Frosh (D-Dist. 16) of Chevy
Chase, who has three Democratic competitors so far — Del.
C. William Frick (D-Dist. 16) of
Bethesda, Del. Aisha N. Braveboy (D-Dist. 25) of Mitchellville,
and Del. Jon S. Cardin (D-Dist.
11) of Owings Mills.
“I think that he is one of
the most outstanding public
servants that you can ﬁnd — a
very honorable, hard-working
guy, who has great values about
public service,” Leggett said of
Frosh.
aschotz@gazette.net

Speakers took to the podium Thursday night to tell the
Montgomery County Board of
Education about the need for
counselors, services for nonEnglish speaking students,
technology, and support for
Curriculum 2.0 implementation in the ﬁscal 2015 operating
budget.
Superintendent Joshua P.
Starr released his recommended
$2.28 billion operating budget in
December, which includes new
positions aimed at helping lowincome, English for Speakers of
Other Languages and special
education students.
Speakers testiﬁed about the
urgent need for more staff in
schools.
Janette Gilman — president
of the Montgomery County
Council of Parent-Teacher Associations — said the council
endorsed the budget “in large
measure” but was concerned
about funds directed toward
central ofﬁce positions.
Gilman said the school
board should consider whether
the money would be put to better use in school-based positions.
Ann Coletti, a Springbrook
cluster coordinator, said schools
in her area need expanded ESOL
services.
“Our ESOL teachers are
overwhelmed and understaffed,” she said.
Some schools, Coletti said,
need more professional development for teachers to help
them better implement Curriculum 2.0.
Large class sizes are putting
“incredible strains on teachers
and students alike,” she said.
One speaker — who identiﬁed herself as a counselor at
Little Bennett Elementary in
Clarksburg — said counselors at
her school are facing “enormous
demands” as rising enrollment
has increased the number of
students each counselor works
with.
“I counsel 985 students
along with a part-time counselor,” she said. “Students in
need of counseling are often
waiting outside my ofﬁce or sent
back to class.”
School board member Michael Durso said it seems there
are disparities from school to
school when it comes to student-to-counselor ratios.
Kevin David — area vice
president for the Clarksburg,
Northwest, Quince Orchard and

1912214

Seneca Valley clusters — said
the proposed budget does not
meet all the needs of the schools
in the clusters he represents,
which include updated technology and more full-time staff development personnel.
New positions in Starr’s
budget include 178 elementary
and secondary teachers, 75
positions working with special
education students, and eight
positions working with students
who speak English as a second
language.
The budget also includes 15
focus teachers in high schools
aimed at helping reduce English
and math class sizes in some
schools and new team leader
positions in some elementary
schools with high numbers of
special education and ESOL
students.
Other new staff members in
the budget include 5.5 elementary school counselors, four
school psychologists and three
pupil personnel workers.
Dahlia Huh, a junior at
Clarksburg High School and
secretary of the Montgomery County Regional Student
Government Association, said
students want to see new technology and programs that were
cut restored.
Another speaker, who identiﬁed himself as the member of
a Latino student achievement
group, said the school system
needs to develop new ways to
address Latino students’ needs
and keep it up-to-date with
“changing student populations
and county communities.”
“Persistent problems cannot
be solved with outdated remedies,” he said.
School board member
Christopher S. Barclay said he
agreed.
“We do have to come up
with new ways of doing business,” Barclay said. “As our
population changes, we have to
ﬁgure out ways to reach them.”
Several parents asked for
funding to continue an eightperiod class schedule at Silver
Spring International Middle
School. The extra period allows
more planning time for teachers
and opportunities for students
to take electives, they said.
Celeste Raker Dillen said her
son — a student at Silver Spring
International — struggles with
learning disabilities, undiagnosed attention deﬁcit hyperactivity disorder and anxiety that
make school difﬁcult for him.
In his music, art and band
classes, however, he is able to
“transcend his disability,” she
said.
Dillen said she was advocating for all students who struggle
in core academic subjects.

THE GAZETTE

Wednesday, January 15, 2014 p

$61.25 million paid for
Rockville ofﬁce building
Gaithersbug hotel
sells for $8.9 million
n

BY SONNY GOLDREICH
SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE

Federal Capital Partners of
Chevy Chase announced that it
bought a Rockville ofﬁce building in the Preserve at Tower
Oaks development for $61.25
million.
One Preserve Parkway, a
seven-story, 183,667-squarefoot property developed in
2008, is 92 percent leased to
eight tenants. Government
contractor Booz Allen Hamilton occupies the most space,
117,674 square feet through
2019.
The seller, Boston Properties, developed the building
as part of an 84-acre, luxury
master-planned mixed-use development that has the capacity for 1 million square feet. The
complex also includes Boston
Properties’ 2600 Tower Oaks
Blvd., a 179,369-square-foot
office building completed in
2001.
One Preserve Parkway is
across the street from Clyde’s
Tower Oaks Lodge and adjacent to Woodmont Country
Club.
Federal Capital said it is is
actively seeking more high-

quality, income-producing
investments with limited nearterm lease rollover.
Bill Collins and James Cassidy of Cassidy Turley represented the seller in the deal.

Wyndham Garden hotel
trades for $8.9 million
Hunter Hotel Advisors
announced the sale of the
203-room Wyndham Garden Hotel Gaithersburg,
which state property records show traded for $8.9
million.
Hunter of Atlanta represented the seller, Rufﬁn Hotel
Corp., a private investment
group in Wichita, Kan. The
buyer, Baywood Hotels of
Washington, D.C., plans a major renovation and rebranding
of the hotel as part of a strategy
to better serve the upscale market.
“Our marketing strategies are producing accelerated
closings such as this one, which
closed in just 60 days,” David
Perrin, a senior associate at
Hunter, said in a news release.
“The expanding economy and
availability of ﬁnancing con-

Most ofﬁces
to be closed
Monday for
King Day
Many Montgomery County
operations will be shut down
Monday in observance of Martin
Luther King Jr. Day.
County offices, libraries
and liquor stores will be closed.
County aquatics programs and
facilities will be open, but all
other classes and programs are
canceled. Administrative ofﬁces,
senior centers and community
centers will be closed. Operating
schedules for county parks are at
montgomeryparks.org.
Ride On buses will follow a
special modiﬁed holiday schedule, available at rideonbus.com.
Metrobus will follow a Saturday
schedule with supplemental service; Metrorail follows its Saturday holiday schedule. The TRiPS
commuter stores in Silver Spring
and Friendship Heights will be
closed.
Trash and recycling pickups
will be delayed one day during
the week, with the last collection day Saturday. The transfer
station will be closed.
Parking in public garages
and lots and at curbside meters
is free.
Schools and school administrative ofﬁces, along with state
ofﬁces and courts, will be closed.

Rockville
City Hall will be closed, as
will the Croydon Creek Nature
Center, F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre, Glenview Mansion, civic
center park ofﬁces and senior
center.
The Lincoln Park Community Center, Rockville Swim and
Fitness Center, Thomas Farm
Community Center and Twinbrook Community Recreation
Center will be open regular
hours.
Parking will be free at cityowned meters.
Regular trash and recycling
pickup will be delayed one day
during the week.

Gaithersburg
All city ofﬁces, parks, and
recreation and culture facilities
are closed Monday.
Police administrative ofﬁces
will be open. Recycling pickups
will follow normal schedules.

The Gazette’s
Auto Site

Gazette.Net/Autos

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Page A-9

Faster, Dad!

tinue to drive sales.”
The 198,198-square-foot
property at 805 Russell Ave.
was completed in 1987. It sold
for $5.6 million in 1992.

NorthMarq arranges loan
for Oakwood apartments
NorthMarq’s Washington
regional office arranged acquisition financing of $22.4
million for Oakwood Corporate Apartments, a 136-unit
furnished property in Gaithersburg.
The building, at 9890
Washingtonian Blvd., was acquired in March by Bernstein
Management of Washington
for $31.3 million.
NorthMarq arranged the
ﬁnancing through one of its
exclusive insurance company
capital sources.
Archstone traded the property as part of a nationwide
selloff of residential projects
that involved a 23,000-unit
portfolio. The 11-story building is across the street from
the Washingtonian Center in
the I-270 Tech Corridor.
The Class A property was
completed in 1989.

TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE

Despite unseasonably warm weather Monday, Noah Mallory Sorenson Bowen, 3, of Silver Spring gets in
some quality rink time with his father, Mallory Bowen, at Veterans Plaza in Silver Spring. Temperatures
are forecast to return to more January-like levels later this week and this weekend.

The three Maryland jurisdictions
with the most population — Montgomery, Prince George’s and Baltimore
counties — are calling on state lawmakers for money to build and renovate
schools.
Montgomery’s priority this session
is establishing a steady, predictable
stream of state money to leverage borrowing for school construction.
County Executive Isiah Leggett (D)

BUDGET

Continued from Page A-1
The White Flint plans are
part of a $4.4 billion capital improvement plan Leggett planned
to brief the council on Wednesday Jan. 15.
The capital improvement
plan ﬁnances projects such as
schools, roads, and infrastructure projects.
Funding for schools is also a
major part of Leggett’s proposed
plan, as Montgomery County
Public Schools attempts to deal
with dramatic increases in enrollment.
The county’s public schools
increased by 14,599 students between 2000 and 2012, and nearly
half of the schools are projected
to have too many students for
them to accommodate by the
2018-19 school year.
The county is working with its

DIES

Continued from Page A-1
to be treated for hypothermia,
he said.
According to Montgomery
County Fire and Rescue personnel, the children — described as
about 9 to 11 years old — were
playing on ice on a sediment
pond behind a new development in the Crown Farm neighborhood of Gaithersburg when
the ice gave way.
The pond is unmarked and
partially bordered with black
rubber silt fencing.
Rescuers plucked two of the
children from the pond minutes after their arrival. One of

ANSWERS

Continued from Page A-1
$400 in gift cards and almost
$2,000 in cash.
Cash donations will help the
people displaced by the ﬁre and
with funeral expenses for Lancelot Quarshie.
Women Who Care is reaching displaced residents, who are
scattered among family, friends

said Montgomery’s enrollment grows
annually by about 2,000 students, the
equivalent of one high school. In 2013,
Montgomery County Public Schools
enrolled 151,289 students, up from
148,779 students in 2012.
“We are seeing unprecedented
growth that we alone cannot resolve,”
Leggett said. “We cannot wait.”
To build one high school costs
Montgomery more than $100 million,
he said.
Its overall need is as high as $600
million to $700 million in a six-year period, he said.
Leggett will release his six-year capital improvements program Wednesday.
House Speaker Michael E. Busch
said Gov. Martin O’Malley’s ﬁscal 2015

capital budget, which also comes out
Wednesday, includes $627 million for
education.
Exactly how much the “big three”
counties seek from the state remains to
be seen, but Leggett said Montgomery
will put up money of its own to match.
“We commit an awful lot already on
construction dollars, and we’re willing
to commit even more, but our commitment can only be leveraged so far and
to leverage that you need ongoing, sustainable support,” he said.
Not responding to a growing need
for more school construction dollars
could threaten county growth. Leggett
said Montgomery could face moratoriums on development in areas where
schools have reached maximum capac-

ity.

With the state staring at about a
$500 million deﬁcit that O’Malley (D)
says he plans to close without raising
taxes, ﬁnding additional dollars to commit in perpetuity will be a challenge,
Sen. Roger Manno said.
“It’s a tight budget,” he said. “But
it’s my hope that we can ﬁnd a solution
that works for us.”
For the rest of the session, Manno
(D-Dist. 19) of Silver Spring — who sits
on the Senate Budget and Taxation
Committee — said securing this funding will be his No. 1 priority.
If the big three counties broker
a deal like Baltimore city secured
for school construction last session,
Manno said it will be the largest ongo-

ing capital construction project in the
history of the state.
Together the state, Baltimore city
and its school system will contribute
$60 million annually for rehabilitating
schools.
Leggett said while Montgomery,
Prince George’s and Baltimore counties
have stepped forward to ask for school
construction funding this session, other
communities have similar needs.
“This is not something that is
unique to just the three of us,” he said.
If the state does another school
construction funding program, like it
did for Baltimore City, Busch (Dist. 30)
of Annapolis said he would like to see
it focus on need not county-by-county
allocation.

delegation to the General Assembly to get about $20 million more
from the state to combine with $40
million from the county for school
construction.Thatwouldallowthe
county to generate between $600
and $700 in money for school expansion and construction.
“I’m optimistic, but cautiously optimistic,” Leggett said
Friday about the possibility of
additional state funds. “I think
we have a strong case to make.”
Leggett joined Prince
George’s County Executive
Rushern Baker and Baltimore
County Executive Kevin Kamenetz to announce they’ll work
together to develop legislation
that would provide additional
funding for school modernization and construction.
Leggett’s capital improvement program recommends
a total of $1.117 billion for the
county’s public schools, a 13.1
percent increase from the ap-

proved Fiscal Year 2013-18 CIP.
Those expenditures are being balanced by a 14 percent
decrease in funding for county
government projects, totalling
$308.3 million.
If the proposal is fully
funded, MCPS’s school construction request would be able
to fund new additions to 18 elementary schools, two middle
schools and two high schools,
according to the draft proposal.
Those projects would create 455
new classrooms by ﬁscal 2020.
Among other education projects, the proposal includes a $37
million increase for heating, air
conditioning and ventilation work.
The capital proposal also includes $348.1 million in funding
for Montgomery College, with
$89.6 million expected to come
from state funding.
The plan would include
completing a renovation to a
science building and construc-

tion of a parking garage on the
Rockville campus in 2015; opening the Germantown campus’s
Bioscience Education Center in
ﬁscal 2015 and the beginning of
design in ﬁscal 2018 for the Takoma Park campus’s Takoma
Park/Silver Spring Math and Science Center, with construction
scheduled to begin in ﬁscal 2020.
Leggett’s plan would provide funding for transportation
projects, including several in the
upcounty region.
One project would extend
Observation Drive between
Germantown and Clarksburg to
relieve trafﬁc congestion, while
a public-private partnership
would connect an intersection
of Brink Road and Little Seneca
and Snowden Farm Parkways to
support development and improve trafﬁc ﬂow.
Another project would
widen lanes and add sidewalks,
bike paths and center medians

to Goshen Road South from Girard Street to Warﬁeld Road near
Montgomery Village.
Leggett’s plan also proposes a $51.9 million initiative
to replace fire apparatus that
couldn’t be replaced during the
recession.
Over the six-year course
of the plan, the money would
be expected to replace nine
aerial units, 64 ambulances, 21
engines, four all-wheel drive
pumper trucks, four rescue
squads and two tankers.
The capital improvement
plan would also change the way
the county renovates its libraries.
The county is in a transitional period with its libraries,
re-evaluating how they’re built
and used, Leggett said.
Technology is changing how
libraries operate, and the county
will look at how the buildings are
used, he said.
Leggett’s proposal includes

money for the Silver Spring Library, which is scheduled to
open later this year, as well as a
combination of a library and recreation center in Wheaton.
In the future, rather than
closing down and renovating
them, the county will likely perform “refreshments” that will
provide electrical and furniture
upgrades to more quickly provide
upgraded facilities, Leggett said.
The new method is expected
to allow the county to update
and renovate 17 libraries over
the six-year course of the capital plan rather than two libraries
under the old method.
Leggett’s proposal also
provides $363 million in investments in stormwater management by shifting the focus of
the county’s programs from hard
concrete structures to methods
such as rain gardens, bioretention ﬁelds and other environmentally friendly techniques.

them was still on the ice, and
the second boy’s foot had fallen
through the ice, but rescuers
still were able to pull the two to
safety quickly, Graham said.
The third boy, D’Angelo, had
fallen all the way into the pond,
in water that was about 5 feet
deep, Graham said.
Rescue crews used thermal
imaging to search the pond. A
Maryland State Police helicopter
equipped with additional thermal imaging hovered over the
pond and aided in the search.
It took rescuers about
30 minutes, using poles and
searching with their hands, to
ﬁnd the boy and pull him out of
the icy water.
Initially listed in critical con-

dition, he died Monday night.
The pond is in Crown Farm,
a large residential and commercial district under construction in Gaithersburg. The pond
controls sediment and manages
stormwater.
Fencing is not required by
Gaithersburg’s City Code, but
city ofﬁcials required contractors to install a 42-inch safety
fence for the pond as a condition of the erosion and sediment
control plan approval process in
2010, said the statement from
John Schlichting, the city’s director of planning and code administration.
“City inspectors conﬁrmed
installation of the safety fence
around Pond #1 at the begin-

ning of construction [in 2010]
and at subsequent inspections,”
Schlichting wrote. “Removal of
the fence has not been authorized by the City.”
Silt fencing about 30 inches
tall partially bordered the pond
Tuesday morning. A wide swath
of land leading down to the water’s edge from Diamondback
Drive was not blocked by any
fencing, and there did not appear to be any fencing that was
42 inches tall.
At Rosemont Elementary
School, Jimmy Sweeney, the
school’s principal, said Tuesday
that many of his students had
arrived the day after D’Angelo’s
death already knowing about
the tragedy. The accident in-

volved two of his students
— D’Angelo, and another unidentiﬁed fourth-grader, whom
rescue workers saved.
Sweeney said D’Angelo was
a “good, energetic student” who
liked science class. Despite it
being D’Angelo’s ﬁrst year at the
school, Sweeney said the boy
had made many friends at the
school and left a strong impression on teachers.
“We are all going to miss him
terribly here,” he said.
The school had extra pupilpersonnel workers and counselors to help students process
D’Angelo’s death, he said.
School officials also sent out
information on ConnectED, a
notiﬁcation service for parents,

and sent a letter home with students explaining more details
about the incident.
D’Angelo’s brother, a sixthgrader at Forest Oak Middle
School, also was involved in the
accident, but was rescued unharmed. Sweeney said ofﬁcials
at Forest Oak were working with
him as well.
On Tuesday evening,
D’Angelo’s family released a
statement about their son’s
death.
“We would like to thank all
of our family, friends, and the
community for their support
during this difficult time,” it
said. “Please respect our privacy
while our family grieves the loss
of our very special child.”

and other locations, through
their churches and community
groups. Lancelot’s family is temporarily living in a Gaithersburg
hotel, courtesy of the Red Cross.
The volunteers’ wish list is
topped with gift cards and monetary donations, followed by nonperishable food like rice, canned
tuna, spaghetti and cereal. Several
carts sitting in front of the store
were ﬁlled with food donations.
W. Gregory Wims, a Gaith-

ersburg resident and president
of the Victims Rights Foundation, said his organization is collecting clothing and blankets for
the displaced families.
On Sunday, neighbors and
members of World Ministry
Church International, the church
the Quarshie family belongs to,
collected donations for them.
Eunice Abasah attends
church with the Quarshie family. She said she has known them

for six years, before Lancelot was
born. On New Year’s Eve, she
said, Lancelot’s parents took
him and his siblings to church.
“And then on the 8th, he was
gone,” Abasah said.
The church’s pastor,
Dwumah Frimpong, said the
congregants wanted to bring
the family encouragement and
“share ... the word of God” as
they made their way through a
difﬁcult time. Frimpong said he

broke the news of the ﬁre to the
small congregation after a service that day.
“Everybody is shocked,” he
said.
The congregation is made
up of about 50 to 60 people,
mostly Africans from several
different countries. Most know
each others’ families, he said.
Lancelot’s parents asked
Frimpong to lead a funeral service this coming Saturday be-

fore they bury their son. The
Quarshie family has two other
children, one of whom lives in
Ghana, Frimpong said.
The pastor said the community is welcome to attend the service.
Lancelot Quarshie’s service
will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday
at Hosanna Methodist Church
at 14 Brookes Ave. in Gaithersburg. He will be buried at All
Souls Cemetary in Germantown.

County refocuses oldest incubator
Some bioscience
companies will need to move
n

BY

Have a new business in Montgomery County?
Let us know about it at www.gazette.net/
newbusinessform

Cheesecake Factory open at Montgomery mall

KEVIN JAMES SHAY

Diners can add The Cheesecake Factory to the list of
places to eat at the Montgomery mall in Bethesda.
The restaurant chain opened its newest location
at the mall Dec. 19. It replaces the company’s former
location at the White Flint Mall in North Bethesda. The
Montgomery mall location is 10,680 square feet and can
accommodate 320 diners, according to a release from the
company.
The eatery is open from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. Friday and Saturday; 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through
Thursday; 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday.

STAFF WRITER

A key part of a refocusing
program for Montgomery County’s innovation centers is taking
shape, as ofﬁcials plan to move
tenants out of the county’s oldest
center for early-stage businesses
by this summer.
The county plans to work
with the National Institute of
Standards and Technology and
the state of Maryland to renovate
the William Hanna Center for Innovation at Shady Grove — which
dates to 1999 as Montgomery’s
ﬁrst business “incubator” — as
the home of the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence.
“Somewhere in the country
will be the hub for civil cybersecurity,” said Steven A. Silverman,
director of the county’s Department of Economic Development.
“And we think it should be in
Montgomery County.”
NIST, a Gaithersburg-based
federal agency under the U.S. Department of Commerce, is in the
process of obtaining a contractor
to operate the facility as a federally funded research and development center. The public-private
entity formally started almost
two years ago to bring together
experts from industry, government and academia to work on
cybersecurity needs.
The agency plans to award
a contract to operate the center
proposed for five years with a
value up to $400 million, according to a NIST news release. NIST
also is working with private hightech companies such as Microsoft
and Hewlett-Packard, which are
providing software and other resources to the center’s work.

BizBriefs

National 4-H Council has ﬁrst female CEO

FILE PHOTO

Maya Eid, a clinical lab scientist for NeoDiagnostix, analyses cervical epithelial cells at the William E. Hanna Center for
Innovation at Shady Grove in Rockville.
“It’s an opportunity to leverage millions of dollars in federal
money that is going into cybersecurity and bring cybersecurity
companies to the county,” Silverman said. “We want to get these
private partners to open ofﬁces
here.”
That will result in some pain
to the 34 companies in the innovation center, some of which
have been in the Rockville-Shady
Grove area for several years. Most
of those are in the life sciences.
There is space at the Germantown innovation center and in
the private sector, Silverman said.
Johns Hopkins University also
has businesses with space within
the Rockville campus.
“We intend to work with each
one individually to ﬁnd a good solution for them,” Silverman said.
Once the companies are
moved, the renovation process

should take a few months, he said,
though he was not sure about the
timeline.
In October, Silverman and
others spoke before a County
Council committee about a plan
to reorganize the ﬁve innovation
centers to better focus them and
provide more intensive services
that can make tenants grow faster.
One proposal calls for focusing the 23,000-squarefoot downtown Rockville one
on data analytics, while the
32,000-square-foot Germantown center, the newest one that
opened in 2008 with 45 ofﬁces
and 11 wet labs, would retain its
life sciences focus.
The 20,000-square-foot Silver
Spring center, which formed in
2004 and is in the only building
owned outright by the county,
would become an accelerator,
which provides more intensive

programs, including access to
funding, in a ﬁxed, reduced time
frame. The 12,000-square-foot
Wheaton facility, the smallest
one, which opened in 2006, would
close once its lease is up in 2016.
That plan is on hold while
the county moves forward with
the program for the Shady Grove
center, Silverman said.
The five centers now have
an annual budget of about $4.5
million, with about $2.5 million
recovered in rent, licensing fees
and other income. The idea is to
move away from the county doing real estate management to get
more investment and partnership
management, Silverman said.
The incubator program has
graduated more than 100 companies into private space since
forming in 1999.
kshay@gazette.net

135320G

The National 4-H Council of Chevy Chase is now led
by its ﬁrst female CEO and president: Jennifer Sirangelo,
who started Jan. 1.
Previously, Sirangelo, who joined the nonproﬁt in
2006, was its executive vice president and chief operating
ofﬁcer. She succeeds Donald T. Floyd Jr., who retired as
CEO in December after 22 years with the council, including 13 as CEO.
“Every day, I meet or learn about young people who
are tackling issues that matter most and are engaged in
4-H programs focused on science, healthy living, food security and citizenship,” Sirangelo said in a news release.
“My pledge is to work to bring the 4-H story to new partners, so that we can work together to grow 4-H and invest
in young people — our world’s greatest resource.”
In her seven years with the council, Sirangelo more
than tripled its annual fundraising and led the development of its new strategic plan, according to the release.
Before joining the council, Sirangelo was Northeast
regional vice president for Boys & Girls Clubs of America
and also worked for William Jewell College and the National Kidney Foundation.

Liss joins Foot and Ankle Specialists
Dr. Andrew L. Liss recently joined the Foot and Ankle
Specialists of the Mid-Atlantic, with administrative ofﬁces
in Kensington.
Liss graduated from the Ohio College of Podiatric
Medicine. He has been practicing in Maryland for more
than 25 years. He was chief of podiatry at Howard County
General Hospital and director of the Montgomery County
Podiatric Residency Program. He also was president of
the Maryland Podiatric Medical Association for two years
and continues to serve on its executive board.

Joanie Prather is a paraeducator at
Maryvale Elementary School, Rockville. She
was interviewed at the school Jan. 9.
Your assistant principal, Greg Mullenholz, wrote about you and said you have been
at Maryvale for 40 years. That is a long time.
Why have you stayed so long?

I love this school. I will retire from
Maryvale, the teachers are caring, they are
great. The people and the children [keep me
here]. The children are willing to try, they
come here in good spirits. All the people are
friendly and nice.
How did you get started?

I started as a sub at the old Maryvale,
then Mr. Risk, I don’t know his ﬁrst name
he was always Mr. Risk to me, asked me if
I’d like to come back and I’ve been here ever
since.
Tell me about the changes at Maryvale in
the last 40 years.

We used to be in another building, but
they tore that down and moved us here. This
used to be a middle school, that’s why you
see the lockers in the halls. French Immersion came 18 or 19 years ago. They said it
was a temporary thing but they’re still here.
The front door was always unlocked and
parents could just come in. Not now. And

we used to have a crank copier machine, a
mimeograph that got blue ink all over your
hands, and there were typewriters.
Have you learned French?

Oui. I don’t go into those classes, only
on Tuesdays when we have [Individual Educational Plan meetings] and I need to cover
a class. Mostly I go to the English classes
where I know what they are doing. They do
everything in French except specials: art,
[physical education] and music and when
they come to lunch.
What is your favorite thing about the job?

I like to go into the classrooms or if they
need a sub in P.E. I like working with the
younger ones, kindergarten, ﬁrst and second grades. I like them all but I like the little
ones.
I’ve done everything here. One day they
called for a sub in the cafeteria and no one
came. My friend, another paraeducator, and
I did lunch, luckily it was pizza day. We got
it in the oven and we got through lunch and
cleaned up the cafeteria. It was fun. That was
the ﬁrst time I ever did that and I didn’t do
it again. It was a good experience — something different.
Do you have a favorite memory?

One day we were reading a story about

pioneers and I said, “I like rabbit.” To eat.
These were fourth-graders and since we
had been a middle school, we were still set
up with a kitchen for home [economics], so
I bought a rabbit and brought it in a cooked
it with the children. They liked it.
Another time, with second-graders, we
were reading a story about potatoes and I
asked them if they liked mashed potatoes
and baked potatoes and many had never
had a baked potato. So we cooked them and
they liked them, too.
Mr. Mullenholz also said you are a “pillar in the community,” can you tell me about
that?

I know a lot of the children’s parents, I
had some of them here and now their children are here. People stay in the community
and a lot of their grandparents raise them.
I know who rides which bus, who walks
and who carpools. I can say, “where’s your
brother.” A lot of parents will tell their children, go ask Ms. Prather then tell me what
she says.
“Voices in Education” is a twice-monthly
feature that highlights the men and women
who are involved with the education of
Montgomery County’s children. To suggest
someone you would like to see featured, email
Peggy McEwan at pmcewan@gazette.net.

EDUCATION NOTEBOOK
Northwest High seniors
share research projects
Zoe Kaplan did not know
there was a black market for
attention deﬁcit hyperactivity
disorder stimulants until someone asked about buying some
of hers at school one day.
Since then she has researched the problem and said
she is surprised at how much
kids know about the use of the
medications and how little parents and school administrators
know about their misuse.
Kaplan, who was diagnosed
with ADHD in elementary
school, studied the underground distribution of ADHD
stimulants for her senior research project as part of the
Ulysses Signature Program at
Northwest High School in Germantown.
She, along with 28 other seniors in the program, presented
her research to classmates, faculty, family and friends Jan. 7 at
the school.
The seniors in the Ulysses
program are required to share
their research twice: once as a
lecture before a class and, the
second time, as an exhibit to
share in at the school’s Ulysses
Fair offered in the winter and
spring each year.
Students entering the
school must apply to be a part
of the Ulysses program, said
Suzanne Borenzweig, the program coordinator. About 125
students from each grade participate, she said.
Kaplan’s exhibit including
a video of the television show
“CSI” that dealt with the problem of students purchasing and
using the prescription drugs.
ADHD causes concentration issues, she said, and people
who don’t usually need the
medication like it to help them
focus for tests, especially SATs.
Many of the students did
their research on topics connected to their future occupa-

PEGGY MCEWAN/THE GAZETTE

Robert Allsopp, a senior in the Ulysses Signature Program at Northwest High
School in Germantown, discusses his senior research project with English
teacher Dorothy Ellis on Jan. 7. Allsopp studied Alzheimer’s disease, examining its symptoms, causes and cures.
tions — Kaplan would like to
become a physician’s assistant
— but others choose something
they were just curious about.
Sarah Lee, who often visits
family in South Korea, wondered why cosmetic surgery
was such big business there.
“It’s so normal, so common
in Korea,” she said. “It’s not
seen as a negative. It’s like getting braces.”
Through her research, “I
came to the conclusion that
the idea of beauty in the United
States is that you are more than
just your face, but in Korea it’s
just about your face,” she said.
Rachel Kim studied computer hacking for her exhibit,
“Cybersecurity: The Real Deal.”
Amdiel Clement took a cue from
his own life to study “Academic
Stress: Stressed to the Test”
and Robert Allsopp created an
exhibit on Alzheimer’s disease.
He said the brain has always
interested him.
“In elementary school I did
a research study on the lobes of
the brain,” he said.
Another group of Ulysses
program studies will be pre-

sented at Northwest High on
April 30 and May 1.

15 science students
among nation’s tops
Fifteen Montgomery
County Public Schools students
— out of 20 statewide — have
been selected as semiﬁnalists
in the 2014 Intel Science Talent Search, a nationwide high
school science competition.
The students and their high
schools:
• Montgomery Blair in Silver
Spring: Alexander N. Bour-

The competition is administered by the Society for Science & the Public, a nonproﬁt
dedicated to public engagement in scientiﬁc research
and education. There were 300
semiﬁnalists nationwide, who
were chosen from a pool of
nearly 1,800 entries.
“I continue to be impressed
by the high level of creativity,
innovation, and commitment
our students display in this
rigorous competition,” county
school Superintendent Joshua
P. Starr said in a news release.
The county students’ research projects covered a range
of scientiﬁc topics, including
cancer treatments, stem cell
development and vaccinations.
A list of all the semiﬁnalists and
their projects is at www.societyforscience.org.
Each of the semiﬁnalists
will receive $1,000. Also, each
school will receive $1,000 for
each of its semiﬁnalists, which
is to be used to further excellence in science, math and engineering education.
Forty ﬁnalists will be chosen
Jan. 22 and will compete March
6-12 in Washington, D.C., for
the top prize of $100,000.

Hispanic group honors
Poolesville students
Poolesville High School

seniors Andre Guzman of Gaithersburg and Carolina Zarate of
Germantown were awarded
scholarships for engineering and
math talent at the Washington,
D.C., regional Hispanic Heritage
Youth Awards ceremony.
As the gold medalist in the
engineering and mathematics
category, sponsored by ExxonMobil, Guzman won a $3,000
scholarship to help him pursue
a degree in computer science
and electrical engineering.
Zarate, a silver award winner,
received a $2,000 scholarship
to pursue a degree in computer
science.

The Hispanic Heritage
Youth Awards program offers
educational grants to Hispanic
high school seniors chosen
by regional selection committees based on their academic
achievement, leadership, community service, category focus
and an essay about the important role their heritage played in
their success.

Open house
at St. Patrick’s
St. Patrick’s Catholic School

in Rockville will hold open
houses for grades kindergarten
through 8 on Jan. 23 and 28 and
for its prekindergarten class
Jan. 31. Both will be from 9 to
11 a.m.
St. Patrick’s, at 4101 Norbeck Road, is an accredited
Catholic school and is part of
the Archdiocese of Washington.
The school emphasizes excellence in academics, demonstrating faith through service
and developing students skills
to their fullest potential, according to a news release.
For more information, call
301-929-9672, email ofﬁce@
stpatrickadw.org, or visit www.
stpatrickadw.org.

35 county teachers
achieve certiﬁcation
Thirty-ﬁve Montgomery
County Public Schools educators achieved certiﬁcation by
the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards in
2013. This brings the number of
board-certiﬁed teachers in the
school district to 672.
The district surpasses all
other districts in Maryland and
ranks eighth among school districts nationwide in the number
of new certiﬁed educators.
The voluntary certiﬁcation program involves a
performance-based assessment that typically takes more

than a year to complete. It is
designed to measure what accomplished teachers should
know and be able to do. The
process requires teachers to
demonstrate how their activities, both inside and outside the
classroom, strengthen student
performance and contribute to
student achievement.
Educators earn certiﬁcation
after completing a series of assessments that include teaching
portfolios, student work samples, videotapes and analyses
of their classroom teaching and
student learning. Candidates
also complete a series of written
exercises that probe the depth
of their subject-matter knowledge and their understanding
of how to teach those subjects
to their students.
Certiﬁed full-time, non-administrative Montgomery educators receive a $2,000 annual
bonus. The state also provides
a stipend to certiﬁed teachers
who meet certain qualiﬁcations, pending annual funding.

Gaithersburg High offers
summer job fair
Students at Gaithersburg
High School who are thinking

ahead to summer can explore
job opportunities at the Summer Job Fair at 7 p.m. Tuesday
in the school cafeteria at 314 S.
Frederick Ave.
The fair is sponsored by the
school and the Parent Teacher
Student Association. Among
the job providers who will be
answering questions and taking applications at the fair will
be Asbury Methodist Home
in Gaithersburg; the Rockville
Parks and Recreation Department; Gaithersburg’s aquatics,
parks and recreation, miniature
golf and water park facilities;
and the Montgomery Village
Foundation aquatics and parks
and recreation departments.
Information: carrieb@newsomseed.com.

6-7:30 p.m. at MedStar Montgomery Medical Center, 18101 Prince
Philip Drive, Olney. The best way to
ﬁght cervical cancer is to learn what
can be done to prevent it. During
Cervical Cancer Awareness Month,
MedStar Montgomery is bringing
together a group of experts who will
help both mothers and daughters
understand the importance of being proactive about cervical cancer
screenings and vaccines. Learn
about the human papillomavirus
and Gardasil, the vaccine that has
been proven effective in preventing
HPV. www.medstarhealth.org.

Kosian

SATURDAY, JAN. 18
Girls on the Run: First Aid, 8
a.m. to noon Jan. 18 at Suburban
Hospital (Lambert Building), 8710
Old Georgetown Road, Bethesda.
Receive instruction on ﬁrst aid and
learn the treatment of bleeding,
burns, broken bones and more.
This course is for GOTR coaches
only. Class workbook can be purchased the day of the class for $14.
Checks and cash accepted. $20.
www.suburbanhospital.org.

Bruce and Dorothy Mills Kosian celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on Jan. 11, 2014.
They were wed on Jan. 11, 1954, at their minister’s home
when Bruce was on leave from the Army. Bruce was a member of
the 82nd Airborne Division during the Korean War and Dorothy
was a secretary in Rockville. They spent 47 years in the Derwood
area until the their home was taken by eminent domain for the
building of the ICC. They now reside in Gaithersburg.
They have three children, Mark Kosian, Karen Kosian and
Kathy Ruddle. They have four grandchildren, Keith Kosian,
Heather Kosian, Stacey Ruddle Guedes and Wesley Ruddle, and
one great-granddaughter, Stella Guedes.
They have enjoyed their neighbors and friends all these years.

MedStar Montgomery Medical
Center, 1801 Prince Philip Drive,
Olney. Course is designed to offer
advice and support for breastfeeding mothers. A lactation specialist
will discuss topics on the healthrelated beneﬁts of breastfeeding,
practical techniques, and breastfeeding at work. $30. www.medstarhealth.org.

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 22
Healthy Choices, 7-8 p.m. at
Suburban Hospital (Lambert Building), 8710 Old Georgetown Road,
Bethesda. Ten-week structured
program to help you learn a nondiet lifestyle approach to weight
management. A Suburban Hospital
registered dietitian will help you get
started on the best way to achieve
a healthy body through nutrition,
exercise and behavioral skills. $145.
www.suburbanhospital.org.

at Montgomery Medical Center,
1801 Prince Philip Drive, Olney.
The Heartsaver class teaches basic
CPR, rescue breathing, and relief
of choking for adults, infants and
children and Automated External
Deﬁbrillator use. After successful
completion, the student will receive a Heartsaver AED card from
the American Heart Association.

Class is for the lay community and
is not adequate for individuals
who have or will have patient-care
responsibilities. This class is not
designed for health care providers.
If you are a health care provider,
please register under BLS and CPR
for Healthcare Professionals. $80.
www.medstarhealth.org.

a.m. Fridays to March 28, at Holiday Park Community Center, 3950
Ferrara Drive, Wheaton. Taught by
a certiﬁed instructor, this exercise
program, participants perform a
variety of weight-training exercises
at a faster pace to increase muscu-

to March 31, at Sibley Medical
Building Conference Room 2, 5215
Loughboro Road, NW, Washington, D.C. Weekly meditative gentle
and restorative yoga using mindful
movement, balance and breathing techniques to help women
with a history of cancer to reduce
anxiety, improve quality of life and
regain sense of self. $10 per class,
$30 per month, scholarships available. Walk-ins welcome with cash/
check if space permits. 202-2432320. www.suburbanhospital.org.

Thursdays to March 27 at Sibley
Memorial Hospital, Private Dining
Room 3 (next to cafeteria), 5255
Loughboro Road, NW, Washington,
D.C. Join facilitator Ashley Nunn and
others with a history of cancer to
learn about and practice a relaxation
technique that uses focus on breathing. This practice has been shown to
be effective in reducing stress, anxiety and loneliness; improving sleep;
and boosting immune system. No
prior experience required. Walk-ins
welcome. Register at Sibley.org or
call 202-243-2320. Free. www.suburbanhospital.org.
Mommy & Me Club, from 10 a.m.
to noon Wednesdays, to Jan. 29, at
MedStar Montgomery Medical Center, 18101 Prince Philip Drive, Olney.
Program offers education and support for new mothers and their babies. Discuss with a registered nurse
the practical changes that occur after
a new baby arrives. Topics include
breastfeeding/feeding issues, infant
development, how to calm a fussy
baby and get more sleep to name a
few. $60. www.medstarhealth.org.

RELIGION CALENDAR
ONGOING
Damascus United Methodist Church, 9700
New Church St., Damascus, offers traditional
Sunday morning worship services at 8:15 a.m., a
youth contemporary worship service at 9:30 a.m.
and a service of liturgy and the word at 11 a.m.
with Sunday school at 9:30 a.m. for all ages during
the school year. www.damascusumc.org.
Emmanuel Lutheran Church, 7730 Bradley
Boulevard, Bethesda, offers services at 8:30 a.m.
and 11 a.m. each Sunday, with Sunday School
for all ages scheduled at 10 a.m. Child care is offered from 8:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. A fellowship
and coffee hour follows the 8:30 a.m. service.
301-365-5733, www.elcbethesda.org.
Liberty Grove United Methodist Church,
15225 Old Columbia Pike, Burtonsville, conducts Sunday morning worship services at
8:30, 9:30 and 11 a.m. Sunday school, nursery
through adult, is at 9:30 a.m. 301-421-9166. For
a schedule of events, visit www.libertygrovechurch.org.
“MOPS,” a faith-based support group for
mothers of children, birth through kindergar-

Rowe, Sankar
Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Rowe of Damascus announce the engagement of their daughter, Brittany Wyatt Rowe, to Mr. Scott
Edward Sankar, son of Dr. and Mrs. S. G. Sankar of Burlington,
N.C.
The bride-to-be graduated from Damascus High School in
2003, from Salisbury University in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree
in biochemistry and earned a doctor of pharmacy degree from
the Massachusetts School of Pharmacy & Health Sciences in
Worcester, Mass., in 2010. Ms. Rowe is a pharmacist, employed
with CVS Pharmacy, and resides in Mt. Pleasant, S.C.
The prospective groom graduated from Walter Williams
High School in Burlington, N.C., in 2004 and earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing in 2008 from North Carolina State
University. Mr. Sankar is the general manager of Ristorante Lidi
on Daniel Island, S.C.
A November 2014 wedding and reception is being planned
at The Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston, S.C.

every Sunday, with child care from 8 a.m. to
noon and fellowship and a coffee hour following each service. 301-881-7275. For a schedule
of events, visit www.TrinityELCA.org.
Chancel choir auditions and rehearsals,
7:30 p.m. Thursdays at Liberty Grove Methodist
Church, 15225 Old Columbia Pike, Burtonsville.
Call 301-421-9166 or visit www.libertygrovechurch.org.
“Healing for the Nations,” 7 p.m. every
ﬁrst and third Saturday of the month at South
Lake Elementary School, 18201 Contour Road,
Gaithersburg. Sponsored by King of the Nations Christian Fellowship, the outreach church
service is open to all who are looking for hope
in this uncertain world. Prayer for healing available. Translation into Spanish and French. Call
301-251-3719. Visit www.kncf.org.
Geneva Presbyterian Church, potluck
lunches at 11:30 a.m. the second Sunday
of each month at 11931 Seven Locks Road,
Potomac. There is no fee to attend. All are
welcome to bring a dish to share; those not
bringing dishes are also welcome. Call 301-4244346.

The Gazette prints engagement and wedding announcements, with color photographs, at no charge, as a community service. Copy should be limited to 150 words and submitted in paragraph form.
Announcements are subject to editing for space. Please include contact information, including a daytime telephone number. Photos should be professional quality. If emailing photos, ﬁle size should be
a minimum of 500 KB. Wedding announcements should be submitted no later than 12 months after the wedding. Send to: The Gazette, 9030 Comprint Court, Gaithersburg, MD 20877, or email
kgroff@gazette.net. Montgomery County celebrations are inserted into all Montgomery County editions.

Age 50+?

Be Someone Who Matters
to Someone Who Matters

Volunteer as a mentor
with Interages®!

1912333

PLACING AN
ANNOUNCEMENT

ten, meets from 9-11:30 a.m. the ﬁrst and third
Wednesdays of the month at the Frederick
Church of the Brethren, 201 Fairview Drive,
Frederick. Child care is provided. Ministry
serves moms who have children from birth to
kindergarten, encouraging moms during whatever stage of mothering they are in and provide
support and fellowship with other moms in the
same season of life. For more information call
301-662-1819. Email mops@fcob.net.
Neelsville Presbyterian Church, 20701 Frederick Road, Germantown, has returned to its
Fall worship schedule, with services at 8:30 a.m.
and 11 a.m. Sundays. Sunday School for all ages
at 9:40 a.m. www.Neelsville.org.
Providence United Methodist Church, 3716
Kemptown Church Road, Monrovia, conducts
a contemporary service at 8 a.m. followed by a
traditional service at 9:30 a.m. Sunday mornings, with children’s Sunday school at 9:30 a.m.
and adult Sunday school at 11 a.m. For more
information, call 301-253-1768. Visit www.
kemptownumc.org.
Trinity Lutheran Church, 11200 Old Georgetown Road, North Bethesda, conducts services

1912205
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The Gazette
OUROPINIONS

Forum

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

|

Page A-14

From the
thumbs of babes

If you thought the weather was awful last week, you should
have read the cesspool of angry comments leveled at Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Joshua P. Starr
on Twitter.
Starr has made himself accessible on the social media
site, sharing school-related news and the occasional personal
thought.
In return, parents, students and anyone else with electronic access can write back.
On Jan. 6, amid a spell of severe cold weather, Montgomery and other school systems had to decide whether to cancel
school the next day.
Schools were closed in Fairfax County, Va., and opened
two hours late in Prince
George’s County. MontgomANYONE WHO
ery County and Washington,
D.C., were in the minority in
CARES ABOUT
CIVILITY SHOULD sticking to a normal school
schedule.
WORRY ABOUT
reaction, predictably,
THESE TIRADES VIA wasThe
overwhelmingly — well,
TWITTER
annoyed or mad doesn’t
capture it.
Many people launched
Twitter-length tirades that were as bitter as the outside air.
Some attacked Starr’s judgment and competency. One insisted that he resign.
Some of the harsher comments included raunchy insults.
Then, there were the threats, such as: Starr should be
hunted down and tied to a tree.
Another said: Starr’s personal biography, which lists him
having three children, might need be changed to having two
kids if he doesn’t watch out. Get it?
A few lonely voices chimed in to call for the vicious attacks
to end. At least one apologized to Starr for the barrage.
The wording of the tweets and the Twitter user proﬁle
photos point toward students being behind much of the vitriol, but there is no way to know without further investigation.
When a similar wave of anger was directed toward Starr in
December, he responded with an open letter.
Referring to messages from students at the time, he wrote,
“Some of these ‘tweets’ were clever, funny, and respectful,
pleading for me to cancel school so they could sleep in or have
more time to do their homework. Many of these tweets, however, were offensive and disturbing. Some were threatening to
me and others. A few referenced my family. There was rampant use of racial epithets and curse words.”
This should be a giant “whoa!” to any parent who cares
about decency and civility. Just what have our kids learned?
The school system superintendent, in a modern-world
gesture toward access and connectedness, has invited comments from anyone, at any time.
Maybe this is simply too much freedom for teens with unregulated access to electronic communication and no shame.
Imagine the same exchange happening face to face: A teen
addressing an adult — let alone the top school system ofﬁcial
— by his ﬁrst name, or a slang nickname, or a racial slur, and
so on, down the scale of formality and respect.
Some of the exchanges could rise to the level of criminal
behavior — hinting about killing someone’s child? — yet Starr,
magnanimously, hasn’t involved police, according to Gboyinde Onijala, a spokeswoman for the district.
In his letter, Starr cited his legal responsibility to report the
most violent-tinged messages to administrators and security
staff.
One media report quoted Starr saying principals “doled
out consequences” to some students who sent the tweets, but
Onijala told The Gazette that the central ofﬁce left that discretion to the principals and doesn’t know if any of them took
disciplinary action.
Starr’s reference to “cyberbullying” in his public letter was
misinterpreted by tweeters who ordered him to toughen up.
Actually, the superintendent’s letter clearly and astutely
raised the societal factors behind what is happening in these
Twitter attacks. He wants to address how young people use
social media and how it can go so wrong.
Bullying, electronically and in person, is a primitive,
destructive assault on a person’s pysche and well-being. It
germinates in school systems, where youths sometimes crave
adulation and acceptance, even at another person’s expense.
Starr wrote that “the adolescent brain isn’t equipped to
think long term and doesn’t calculate risk/reward ratios in the
same way that adults do.”
Parents need to do more than hand children a smartphone
and send them on their way. Electronic devices, as these two
episodes of online nastiness show, can amplify or replace inperson bullying, putting educators in a bind on how to police
inappropriate behavior that doesn’t physically take place on
school grounds.
Onijala said the school system offers parents plenty of
ideas and advice for talking to their children about the proper
way to act online and ofﬂine.
Now, the district might do more, through a work group
examining “cybercivility.” Onijala said there are no speciﬁc
plans or timetables yet for the group, which will include students.
We commend Starr for thinking productively rather than
punitively. May the effort toward detoxifying our daily discourse continue.

The Gazette
Karen Acton,
President/Publisher

LETTERS TOT HE EDITOR

Term limits
might not
solve the
problem

MICHELLE GREEN

Ofﬁcials for Montgomery Child Care Association Inc. say that over the winter holidays, one of their buses
was vandalized with foam from a ﬁre extinguisher.

Shocked, disgusted at vandalism
Montgomery Child Care
Association Inc. has provided child care and early
education to the families
of Montgomery County for
over 40 years. MCCA takes an
active role in supporting the
communities that we serve
and is dedicated to providing high quality and affordable child care.
This December, on the
Sunday before New Year’s,
we discovered that a school
bus at one of our programs
located in the Beverly Farms
neighborhood in Potomac
had been vandalized. The
vandals entered the bus,
used the ﬁre extinguisher to
spray foam all over the interior of the bus, and then defecated on the driver’s seat.
A scooter abandoned
nearby suggested that
neighborhood youth may

have been involved in this
senseless act. We reported
the incident to the Montgomery County Police, who
attempted to recover ﬁngerprints from the scene.
We cleaned and sanitized the bus at great expense
and bought a new ﬁre extinguisher. The young children
in our program missed two
days of ﬁeld trips while the
bus was out of commission
and the children had a hard
time understanding why.
After our initial shock
and disgust passed, we were
left to wonder what would
motivate young people to
engage in this type of behavior — anger, contempt, or
possibly worse, a complete
lack of empathy for the impact of their actions on others?
We also wondered

whether the parents of these
young vandals have any idea
at all that their children are
capable of such vile behavior
against a longtime neighborhood nonproﬁt that provides
an essential service to their
community.
As the new year begins,
and our children return to
school, let us resolve as parents, caregivers and educators to model self-control
and compassion, and to develop responsible citizens
with strong social and emotional foundations. We teach
these values to our youngest
children; we should expect
more of our youth.

Michelle Martineau Green
The writer is the executive director of the
Montgomery Child Care Association Inc. in Rockville.

Support for Kleine for District 5
I am writing in strong support of Andrew
Kleine for the “caretaker” seat on the Montgomery County Council. I served with Andrew
on the Central Committee and he served as the
president of our Citizens Association.
Andrew would bring a skill set to the council that would be of incalculable help in these
tight budget times. His experience in public ﬁnance and management would give our county
help way beyond the pay scale of the position.
We are privileged to be offered his assistance on a temporary basis and should take
full advantage of that offer by allowing him to
serve us.

Beth Siniawsky, Silver Spring

WRITE TO US
The Gazette welcomes letters on subjects
of local interest. Please limit them to 200
words. All articles are subject to editing. No
anonymous letters are printed. Letters are
printed as space permits and are limited
to one per person per month. Include your
name, address and daytime telephone
number.
Send submissions to: The Gazette, attention
Commentary Editor, 9030 Comprint Court,
Gaithersburg, MD 20877; fax to 301-6707183; or email to opinions@gazette.net.

Paul and JoAnn Schimke raise
very valid concerns regarding
last November’s “No Selection
Election” [“Term limits needed
in Gaithersburg,” letters, Jan 8].
However, it is unclear that their
proposed remedy, term limits for
the mayor and council members,
would be in the city’s long-term
best interest.
The fact that no one stepped
forward to challenge the three
incumbents may reﬂect a public
consensus that the city is wellmanaged. It may also reﬂect the
fact that currently there are no
burning issues that serve to polarize the electorate.
These factors could change.
Both the mayor and one council
member have announced plans to
seek higher ofﬁce. Vacancies in city
government will occur through attrition. A few years hence, many
neighborhoods will be convulsed
for years by construction of the
Corridor Cities Transitway. Issues
will arise that will test Gaithersburg’s governance and encourage
electoral challenges.
For the moment, however,
one is reminded of Joni Mitchell’s
memorable lyrics: “Don’t it always
seem to go that you don’t know
what you’ve got till it’s gone.” No
need to force the issue.

Bill Fallon, Gaithersburg

E-ZPass
puts limits
on ICC
While part of the problem
with the use of the ICC (Md. 200)
maybe the high cost of the tolls,
the real problem may be the fact
that one has to have E-ZPass. If
one doesn’t have an E-ZPass, then
there is a $3 surcharge adding to
the toll cost ($6 roundtrip extra
regardless of the toll). Maryland
charges $18 a year to have their
E-ZPass, plus keeping at least $25
in the account. The commuter
with limited funds or the infrequent user may not want to pay
that much for so little.

It’s election year. Every aspect decision that pit bulls are “inherof the 2014 Maryland General As- ently dangerous.” Common law
sembly session, which convened says owners and landlords aren’t
Wednesday, hinges on that all- liable unless an animal has shown
important fact. The chief aim (the prior viciousness (the “one bite”
sole aim?) of every state lawmaker rule). The court’s decision creis to either get re-elected or to get ates liability chaos. Also, pit bulls
elected to the next-highest ofﬁce. are not a distinct breed. And how
Only the lame ducks aren’t laser- about crossbreeds? A legislafocused on career entive correction is in the
hancement.
works.
Adding to the
Another court deanxiety is this year’s
cision, that criminal
early primary elecdefendants must have
tion date, June 24,
counsel (public defendjust 10 weeks after
ers) at bail hearings bethe session adjourns.
fore a commissioner,
Whose idea was it
could cost the state
to put an election
more than $30 million
so close to income
a year. Legislative leadtax-filing day? Iners have decided to kick
MY MARYLAND that can down the road
cumbents worry that
there’s not enough
until next year.
BLAIR LEE
time for voters to forStatehouse incumgive or forget.
bents also must apply
And the $300 million budget cosmetic surgery to a couple of
surplus that incumbents built state scandals that are embarrassinto last year’s budget so there’d ing their gubernatorial favorite,
be plenty of election-year loot Anthony Brown.
to spread around is gone. InFirst, there’s the Black Guerstead, this year’s state spend- rilla Family federal bust at the
ing, as usual, exceeds projected state-run Baltimore city jail,
revenues, a $500 million deﬁcit where corrupt guards were helpdowner.
ing an inmate gang run the joint,
But Gov. O’Malley and the including conjugal visits with the
Dems have a solution — put it female guards. After O’Malley
on the credit card. Just borrow an pronounced the scandal “a posiadditional $75 million annually tive development,” a legislative
for the next ﬁve years and let the task force decided who’s to blame
next governor worry about Mary- ... the building! That’s right, the
land’s skyrocketing debt service, solution is a new $533 million jail.
the largest increase of all budget Seriously.
categories, climbing from $233
The task force also recommillion in 2015 to $557 million in mended new disciplinary rules
2019. Call it Detroit ﬁnancing.
for the guards, but if you believe
Another solution to the lack state lawmakers are going to
of state money is to spend some- stand up to the public employee
body else’s money. That’s why unions in an election year, I’ve
state lawmakers are falling over got some Lehman Brothers
themselves to raise the state’s stock I’d like to sell you. Heck,
$7.25-per-hour minimum wage. O’Malley and the Dems enacted
The state won’t have to pay the the 2010 “Corrections Officers
new increases; employers will.
Bill of Rights,” which, as the feds
Incumbents have taken a lot of observed, results in “no effective
heat for passing the infamous “rain punishment” for corrupt guards.
tax,” one of the dumbest laws ever So, instead of placing blame, we’ll
enacted. But after all the posturing build a new jail.
is over, the powerful environmenSpeaking of placing blame,
tal lobby will prevent its repeal. At who takes the fall for Maryland’s
most, it might be delayed until after $150 million Obamacare website
the election, but, more likely, it will ﬁasco? Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown
be softened for nonproﬁts and reli- was in charge but, when the webgious properties.
site crashed in October, the party
Some unﬁnished business in- line was, “We’re focused on ﬁxing
cludes resolving a mindless court it, we’ll place blame later.” Well,

Page A-15

LETTERS TOT HE EDITOR

“later” is here. But you’re about to
see one of the greatest magic acts
in state history. Somehow, the
blame will fall on the bureaucrats,
on the contractors or on anyone
else except Brown, who’s been
endorsed by the legislature’s
leadership, by O’Malley and by
most Democratic incumbents.
Finally, here’s my nominee
for this session’s wild card sleeper
issue, legalizing marijuana, which
could get legs for these reasons:
One, most incumbents are
Dems whose re-election depends
on winning their Dem primary
in their Dem districts, where pot
is popular. A 2012 Gonzales poll
on medical marijuana showed
63 percent of Maryland’s likely
voters in favor, but 70 percent of
Dems.
Two, for blacks and liberals
it’s a civil rights issue; legalization
would end so-called racial bias in
pot convictions.
Three, Senate President Mike
Miller is in favor because he
wants the pot tax revenue, the
same reason why he backed slots
and casinos.
Four, Del. Heather Mizeur’s
only chance for winning the governor’s race is her legalizing pot
pledge, so she’ll be pot’s Joan of
Arc in this year’s session.
Five, House Speaker Mike
Busch and O’Malley are opposed
but Busch is famous for caving
in (i.e., slots and casinos), and
O’Malley’s veto might act as a
perverse incentive for lawmakers
who want to vote for legalization
without it actually happening.
Likewise, lame-duck lawmakers,
immune from re-election pressure, may cast surprising votes.
To make it more palatable,
recreational pot may be recast
as decriminalization or as unrestricted medical marijuana (like
California). But, whatever they
call it, 2014 may be the year when
the Free State becomes the Weed
State.

We don’t need hunts to manage deer
Every public park near our home in Montgomery County displays yellow signs warning
the public of its impending closure during
January and February 2014, when “trained
sharpshooters” will roam the forests from dusk
to dawn in a futile attempt to cull the deer population.
Research has shown that in areas where
such “management” occurs, the deer population actually increases. It makes sense — surviving deer have less competition over scarce
food sources and nature ﬁghts back with an increase in multiple births the following season.
There are much better and more humane
ways to keep the deer population under control such as fencing, birth control, and using
trained dogs to herd the deer. Rapid City, S.D.,
has been killing deer since 1996 with unclear
effect and at a cost of over $350,000. In Lewis
Morris Park, N.J., an annual deer cull since
1996 produced the following effect: 63.2 deer
per square mile in 1996, 65 deer per square
mile in 2009.
After 17 years of deer culling, the city of
Stevens Point, Wis., concluded that the deer
population’s rate has remained unchanged. Is
it possible that these “management” practices
actually are causing a larger problem and giving hunters an excuse to invade our parks?
Deer have a relevant role in our ecosystem only we have not adequately explored this
angle. A recent article in the Journal of Wildlife
Management states that high deer populations
enrich the soil with their droppings creating
hospitable environment useful for its forest
creatures. Deer grazing on tree saplings have
also shown to enhance the moisture of the soil.

There is no scientiﬁc evidence to support
that deer are preventing our forests from regenerating. In New York near Binghamton
University researchers clearly showed why
deer culling not only had no positive effects
but also long-term negative affects on our ecosystem.
They found that the presence of deer is actually helpful to other animal species, and that
programs to reduce their populations may be
detrimental to a region’s biodiversity.
“Culling deer may cascade into affecting
plants, salamanders and other creatures in
ways we can’t even imagine,” said Ohio State
University researcher Katherine Greenwald.
“Ofﬁcials need to know more about the forest ecosystem before making decisions about
wildlife management.” Another study showed
that some forest understory-dwelling birds
beneﬁt from deer grazing, and that the presence of deer decreased populations of rodents
that preyed on ground birds’ nests.
Culling practices have also shown little if no
impact on the tick population. Deer are much
less likely than other hosts (such as mice) to
transmit a bacterial infection to feeding ticks.
Deer then actually may play an important role
in reducing the incidence of Lyme disease.
We neglect to take into account our role in
destroying the deer’s habitat and their predators. The least we can do is leave the parks as
our sanctuary and theirs — for our families and
future generations. Let’s ﬁnd cheaper and better ways of creating safe sanctuaries for all of
us — people and deer alike.

Avi Goldscheider, Potomac

Blair Lee is chairman of the
board of Lee Development Group
in Silver Spring and a regular
commentator for WBAL radio.
His column appears Fridays in
the Business Gazette. His past
columns are available at www.
gazette.net/blairlee. His email address is blairleeiv@gmail.com.

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Northwood High School’s Christian Reyes (front) played last fall with a torn ACL and suffered compartment syndrome following surgery.

CHRISTIAN REYES:

RETURN

BY

ERIC GOLDWEIN
STAFF WRITER

It started with pop. In September’s season-opener, Northwood High
School football player Christian Reyes
sacked Poolesville’s quarterback and
took a cleat to his right knee. The second-team All-Gazette kicker and talented defensive lineman said he heard
“a huge pop” in his right leg and suspected the injury was serious, but carried on throughout the fall.
Despite the injured knee, Reyes,
who is right-footed, averaged 40.6 yards

If there is one thing swimmers do
well, it’s push themselves to extraordinary heights. Therefore, as one of
the Washington, D.C. area’s fastest
sprinters, it goes completely against
Winston Churchill High School senior
Alicia Tiberino’s nature to hold back.
It was the inherent internal drive
of a swimmer that kept her competitive during two years of shoulder issues that started in 2011, but her
body’s limitations that prevented her
from going all out the way every ﬁber
in her being wanted to.
“I’m a sprinter, I have to move my
arms fast but it hurt,” Tiberino said. “I
was always thinking, ‘Don’t push too
hard, don’t push too hard,’ and everyone was passing me. It was terrible.”
No one could have blamed Tiberino for walking away from the
sport; she said her parents even asked
her on occasion why she put herself
through so much pain. It was for the
hope of swimming best times again,
for helping Churchill compete for another Metros title, and for milestones
like signing her letter of intent in the
fall to compete at the Division I level
next year at Saint Francis (Pa.) University. Tiberino waited out the storm
and these days is pain-free for the ﬁrst
time in a long time, she said, which

See CHURCHILL, Page B-2

Northwood kicker suffers setback
following routine ACL surgery

n

per punt and was perfect as a ﬁeld goal
kicker. The junior converted all 13 extra
point attempts, both of his ﬁeld goals
and had two punts for more than 60
yards, according to Northwood coach
Dennis Harris.
“I always felt a tingle and a little
spasm attack every time I punted, but
I’ve been to so many punting camps
that I developed the instinct,” Reyes
said.
Reyes was also a force on the defensive line, recording 39 tackles, four
sacks and nine tackles for loss.
“It didn’t appear to slow him down

at all,” senior teammate Lucas Kane
said. “I honestly forgot that his knee
was even bothering him.”
After Northwood’s 2-8 season
ended, Reyes had the knee checked out
and was diagnosed with a torn anterior
cruciate ligament (ACL) and a strained
posterior cruciate ligament (PCL). He
had surgery on Dec. 23, but that’s when
the worst of it came.
Complications followed the ACL
surgery and Reyes, 16, was diagnosed
with compartment syndrome: a poten

See RETURN, Page B-2

RAPHAEL TALISMAN/FOR THE GAZETTE

Winston Churchill High School swimmer
Alicia Tiberino warms up before her team’s
meet against Walter Johnson on Saturday.

Some basketball players struggle using their off hands, but not Damascus High
School’s Lauren Green. The senior shooting
guard turned hers into an useful option.
Making plays with her left and right, Green
is having her best high school season and has
developed into one of Montgomery County’s
top scoring threats. She is averaging 15.5 points

per game, using her versatile skill-set to help
the Swarmin’ Hornets off to an 11-2 start.
“Because she uses both hands so well, she
can get to the basket and score at any angle,”
Damascus coach Steve Pisarski said.
Green said she has been working to improve her left hand since she started playing
basketball about 10 years ago.
“When I was younger, my dad (Bob Green)
really pushed to work my off-hand as well as
my strong hand. ... Every drill that we did, we
did it on the right side and the left side,” Green
said.

See DAMASCUS, Page B-2

BILL RYAN/THE GAZETTE

Damascus High School’s Lauren Green has taken on an increased role this
winter.

THE GAZETTE

Page B-2

CHURCHILL

went about her business, scoring points for Churchill and
embracing her role as an important team leader and role
model for younger athletes.
Brendan Roddy said he
had no idea how much pain Tiberino was in, and how would
he? It was not reﬂected in her
results. As a freshman, she
helped Churchill win its second Metros title in three years
with 35 points, second only to
then junior Natalya Ares, who
is currently in her sophomore
season at Division I University
of Richmond. As a sophomore,
Tiberino racked up 36 points
off two top 6 individual results
and last winter, ﬁnished ﬁfth in
the 100-yard freestyle.
Though Tiberino might not
be Churchill’s highest scorer,
her consistency is invaluable,
Roddy said. Every single point
matters at a championship
meet — Churchill won the

Continued from Page B-1
can only mean good things
for the undefeated Bulldogs as
they look to reclaim the Metros
title from defending champion
Thomas S. Wootton.
“I knew I didn’t want to
quit,” Tiberino said. “I love
how I feel in the water when
you’re just going fast. That’s
not something I wanted to let
go of. ... At the beginning of
this year it didn’t hurt anymore
and I felt like a new person.”
Tiberino is used to defying odds. At 5-foot-4 on a good
day, she is typically smaller
than most of her competitors
and often reminded of the
challenges that presents. But
she refused to be deﬁned by
the recent shoulder injury, she
said. Tiberino kept the pain
and frustration to herself and

2012 title by two points and
ﬁnished second by six points
in 2013 — and she has been
among the Bulldogs’ top contributors since her freshman
year. Her ability to understand
how meets work and the team
effort that goes into creating a
championship team have also
been integral to the program,
Roddy said. Those qualities,
along with Tiberino’s sheer
racing abilities, make her vital
in the lead-off position in the
200- and 400-yard freestyle relays.
The Bulldogs won the
400-yard freestyle relay at
last year’s Metros in an automatic All-American time of 2
minutes, 28.01 seconds and
finished second in the 200yard freestyle relay to a Katie Ledecky-led Stone Ridge
squad.
“[Tiberino] understands
the dynamics of a team and

Green, 5-foot-8, is scoring
from all over the court, Pisarski
said.
“She’s got a great basketball
mind, she’s got that basketball
mentality,” Pisarski said. “She
thinks the game very well.”
Green’s right-handed shot

that it’s more than just the top
stars or herself,” Roddy said.
“Everyone makes a difference.
She is a mental swimmer, she
gets herself amped and ready
to compete and she steps up
no matter who is in the lane
next to her.”
It’s hard to derail Tiberino,
these past two years have
shown that — she said she is
stronger for what she’s been
through. With her shoulder
feeling 100 percent for the ﬁrst
time in a long time, Tiberino is
poised for a strong championship season.
“Basically I swam through
[the injury], I didn’t want to
start back at the bottom [if I
took time off],” Tiberino said.
“I’ve been through terrible
pain, I don’t take it for granted
when I feel amazing.”
jbeekman@gazette.net

is pretty good, too. She leads the
Swarmin’ Hornets in 3-pointers
(20) and is nearly perfect at the
free-throw line (52-61).
“Overall, it’s my best year so
far,” Green said.
The sharp shooting isn’t just
improving Green’s statistics; it’s

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Wednesday, January 15, 2014 p

RAPHAEL TALISMAN/FOR THE GAZETTE

Winston Churchill High School swimmer Alicia Tiberino swims the 100 meter freestyle at a meet against Walter Johnson at Montgomery College in Takoma Park
on Saturday afternoon.

freeing up space for Damascus’
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kick it back out and there’s Lauren Green for the three.”
Green has been hot in Damascus’ current four-game
winning streak, putting up
big numbers against some of
the county’s best teams: Paint
Branch (10-1), Poolesville (9-1),

Seneca Valley (8-3) and Gaithersburg (6-4).
Green scored 15 points
against Poolesville and had a
16-point game against Seneca
Valley, helping Damascus remain undefeated (4-0) in the
Montgomery 3A/2A Division.
“I think our coaches have
done a really god job of keeping us focused,” Green said. “...
All the girls are coming together
really well and supporting each
other. It’s making for a lot of
team chemistry which carries
onto the court.”
Green scored a team-high
24 points and collected nine
rebounds in Damascus’ Jan.
4 victory against Paint Branch
(67-58), while Prange scored
22 and senior Jenna Kaufman
added 10.
“We’re not a one-person
show, but we do have a bunch of
different people, including Lauren, who can lead us in scoring
every night,” Pisarski said.
Damascus went 22-3 last
season and advanced to the 3A
state semiﬁnals after winning
the 3A West Region. Green, who
signed with Bentley University,
is hoping this year’s team can
take the next step.
“I just want to be able to help
... and just keep improving so
that I can help myself, as well as
the team,” Green said.
egoldwein@gazette.net

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RETURN

Continued from Page B-1
tially life-threatening condition
occurring when excessive pressure builds up in an enclosed
body space. The condition can
sometimes result in paralysis.
Reyes said he had “a huge
blood clot” in his calf and his
swollen leg was “about as big
as a basketball and as hard as a
rock.”
On Christmas, the kicker
underwent surgery at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He
remained there for more than
two weeks, undergoing several
procedures on his leg. Reyes said
he was transferred to Georgetown Hospital on Monday.
“It was really tough for me,”
Reyes said. “And it’s still tough
for me right now to accept the
fact that I’m really hurt and I
can’t do anything about it.”
The timing could not have
been worse for Reyes, who is
trying to earn a football scholarship.
“I just don’t want my parents to pay a dime for college,”
he said.
But he remains optimistic
that he can return and said he
feels fortunate that the symptoms weren’t worse. He estimated that he would be 70
percent healthy next season,
adding that it could take two
years to fully recover.
There are risks; Reyes said
that playing football could increase the chance of symptoms
returning in the future.
“That’s definitely a tough
situation and like I told him,
it’s about him being healthy,”
Harris said. “Don’t worry about
trying to rush back and play
football. You have your entire
life to live and you don’t want do
something to jeopardize that.”
Reyes said he was unsure
when he would be released from
the hospital and would return to
school in a wheelchair on Jan. 27
at the earliest.
“I still believe that after every
surgery, I’m going to come back
stronger. I know that for sure,”
Reyes said.
egoldwein@gazette.net

History wasn’t doing the Damascus High School boys’ basketball team any favors when it
visited undefeated Gaithersburg
Friday night.
The Swarmin’ Hornets were
always competitive, having ﬁve
of their eight losses decided by
11 points or less, including a
two-point loss to Central Valley,
a six-point loss to Clarksburg,
another two-point heartbreaker
to Watkins Mill and another sixpoint loss to Bethesda-Chevy
Chase. The problem? Free

BOYS BASKETBALL
NOTEBOOK

GREG DOHLER/THE GAZETTE

BY TRAVIS MEWHIRTER
throw shooting.
Combined between the
losses to the Coyotes, Wolverines and Barons, Damascus
went 39-for-71 from the line, a
ghastly 55 percent. So forgive
coach Butch Marshall if he
wasn’t brimming with confidence when the Trojans began
fouling to stop the clock on Friday night.
But then something strange
happened: the Hornets made
8-of-9 in the ﬁnal four minutes
to seal a 61-56 upset of the thenNo. 3 Trojans, ruining Gaithersburg’s shot at perfection.
Stephon Jacob went 4-for-5 in
scoring 21 points, Matthew Torrence 4-for-4, and Joseph Daniels 2-for-2.
“It should give us a lot more
conﬁdence, especially when we
step up to the line,” Marshall
said. “It gave our guys the conﬁdence that you can go into any
environment and win. We’ve
had that a couple times where
we have the opportunities and
miss the free throws. It was a
big plus because when we have
a lead and they’re fouling, when
you knock those down it makes
a big, big difference.”
Marshall made sure to note
that Gaithersburg was without
leading scorer Anthony Tarke
(17.8 ppg), who rolled his ankle
in a 52-48 win over Quince Orchard two nights before, and

Betsy Knox (right) of Walt Whitman High School looks to shoot against Maggie McClain of host Montgomery Blair
on Friday.

TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE

Gaithersburg High School’s Aaron King (front) was not at full strength due to
injury when the Trojans were upset by Damascus on Friday.
that point guard Aaron King
also wasn’t fully healthy, having
hurt his back and operating at
what Gaithersburg coach Tom
Sheahin estimated to be “75
percent.”
“We were banged up but
Damascus had a great game
plan, awesome game plan, and
they spread us out,” Sheahin
said. “It just seemed like they
got every loose ball, even balls
that were tipped out of bounds
seemed to go their way.”
Any bounces from the rim
weren’t helping, either. The
Trojans made just one ﬁeld goal
in a 3-point second quarter to
head into the half down 23-18
and played from behind for the
remainder of the game.
Sheahin, while disappointed by the loss, wasn’t
crushed by it. It was an out-ofconference game still early in
the season with two of his best
playmakers either out or nagged
by an injury. Tarke had warmed
up, testing out the ankle, before
the coach ultimately decided to
sit him.

“We start out with 10 of our
first 13 games on the road,”
Sheahin said. “If you would
have told me we’d be 10-1 at
this point in the season, I’d be
very happy. Very rarely in sports
does somebody go undefeated,
it’s a hard thing to do.”
The Trojans responded by
attending a voluntary team
practice the next morning at
8:30 — an hour and a half before the scheduled start time of
10 a.m.
“The big thing was we handled it really well,” Sheahin said.
“They handled it very well.”
Unfortunately for Damascus, any momentum from the
win will essentially stop there.
The Hornets have an 11-day
layoff for exams before getting
a rematch with the Wolverines.
“I wish we could play tonight, tomorrow night, last
night,” Marshall joked. “Everything kind of aligned for us.”
tmewhirter@gazette.net

The Georgetown Prep
swimming and diving team
defeated three-time defending Washington Metropolitan
Interscholastic Swimming and
Diving champion and historical rival DeMatha in a tri-meet
held Saturday in Bethesda.
The Little Hoyas, who are undefeated to start the 2013-14

PREP NOTEBOOK
BY GAZETTE STAFF
season and poised to have
a successful championship
season, prevailed 101-85 over
Gonzaga and 130-50 over
DeMatha. Prep won 10 of 12
events Saturday and ﬁnished
two in the top three of six races.
The Little Hoyas’ tremendous
junior class accounted for
ﬁve of eight individual events.
Grant Goddard and Carsten
Vissering won two events
apiece. Both have broken Prep
pool records early this winter,
Goddard in the 200-yard freestyle and Vissering in the 200yard individual medley.
— JENNIFER BEEKMAN

Richard Montgomery’s
Song to swim at Columbia
There are no athletic scholarships offered in Ivy League
sports but after giving his verbal commitment to swim at
Columbia University, Richard
Montgomery senior Gregory
Song recently signed a document that for all intents and
purposes acted as his national
letter of intent to swim for the
Lions in 2014-15. A top 10 indi-

vidual scorer at last year’s Metros, Song has been integral in
the Rockets’ recent success. A
third-place ﬁnisher at last winter’s state championship meet,
Richard Montgomery is making
quite the campaign for itself as a
major postseason contender this
championship season. With Saturday’s win over defending state
runner-up Montgomery Blair,
the Rockets remain the only undefeated boys’ team in the county’s top division with Saturday’s
contest against a .500 Winston
Churchill team closing out its division schedule.
— JENNIFER BEEKMAN

Tilton continues to impress on QO’s mat
Quince Orchard heavyweight wrestler Connor Tilton
maintained his impressive
start to the season by scoring a
big win against Urbana’s Nick
Keller in the championship
match of the Hub Cup Tournament at North Hagerstown
High School. A tournament
that always features a stacked
field of competition, Tilton
added this win to his Mad
Mats title from December and
appears on track to potentially
better his third-place ﬁnish in
the state tournament from a
season ago.
— NICK CAMMAROTA

Clarksburg performs well at
Montgomery Invite
The Coyotes had a strong
showing at Saturday’s Montgomery Invitational indoor track meet
with Claudia Ababio, Alexus Pyles
and Carlos Vanzego all placing at
the event.
Ababio, a senior shot putter,
tookﬁrstplace(42feet,4.5inches).
Pyles, a sophomore, placed sec-

GREG DOHLER/THE GAZETTE

Carlos Vanzego of Clarksburg competes in the triple jump ﬁnals Saturday during the Montgomery County
Invitational.

Whitman takes control of
4A South Division
Good Counsel has
won three of past four
games
n

The Walt Whitman High
School girls’ basketball team
doesn’t have one top scorer;
it has about ﬁve. Sophomore
Marie Hatch is leading the
team with just 10.1 points per
game, but the Vikings (10-2,
5-0) have several players capable of taking over on any
given night. Lately, freshman
guard Abby Meyers has carried the offense. She tallied
a personal best 15 points in
Friday’s 65-38 victory over
Montgomery Blair and a
team-high 12 points in a win
over Richard Montgomery.
“She ﬁts right in, like you
wouldn’t even know that she’s
a freshman,” senior Avery Witt
said. “She goes out on the court
and plays so well. I love it.”
Whitman has won nine

Good Counsel gains
steam

loss to Bishop McNamara
with a 65-50 victory over St.
Mary’s Ryken (5-8) last week
followed by a 62-57 win over
Georgetown Visitation (10-2),
and has now won three of its
last four games.
Senior Stacey Koutris
stepped up in the last two
wins, scoring a combined 35
points. Junior Nicole Enabosi is averaging a teamhigh 11.1 points and has hit
double-ﬁgures in all but three
games. The Falcons (8-5, 3-2)
are competing for a top spot
in the Washington Catholic
Athletic Conference. Paul VI
Catholic (11-3, 6-0) and Elizabeth Seton (12-3, 6-1) rank
ﬁrst and second in the WCAC,
respectively.

Our Lady of Good Counsel rebounded from a tough

egoldwein@gazette.net

GIRLS BASKETBALL
NOTEBOOK
BY ERIC GOLDWEIN
straight and is in ﬁrst place
in the Montgomery 4A South
Division after ending Blair’s
(9-2, 4-1) eight-game winning
streak. The Vikings’ last loss
came Dec. 14 against private
school Bishop McNamara.
Winston Churchill (6-6,
3-2) has won three straight
and sits in third place in the
division after defeating Walter Johnson, Bethesda-Chevy
Chase and Richard Montgomery. The Bulldogs are
undefeated since their Jan. 4
overtime loss to Blair.

THE GAZETTE

Page B-4

Wednesday, January 15, 2014 p

Talented junior class

Senior-less Blair wins with underclassmen
Blazers open season
with 5-1-1 mark with a
roster comprised mostly
of talented juniors
n

Vikings thrive on long
possessions and smart shot
selection
n

NICK CAMMAROTA

BY TRAVIS MEWHIRTER
STAFF WRITER

STAFF WRITER

Before the season started,
Montgomery Blair High
School’s co-op ice hockey
team had two factors that
were arguably working
against it.
The ﬁrst, and one that was
resolved rather quickly, was
that it appeared as though
Blair would exceed the number of players from one
school who were allowed to
participate on a co-op team,
forcing the Blazers to play as
a single-school club.
That turned out not to be
the case, however, as Kevin
McCabe’s team powered forward with the same makeup
it’s had in past seasons.
The second, and more
intangible factor, was wondering how the team would
respond given that the roster
didn’t contain a single senior.
Every player, from leading scorer Max Kronstadt (13
goals, 9 assists, 22 points) to
freshman goalie Jake Zastrow,
had no more than two years
of varsity experience heading
into the year.
So, despite the fact that a
signiﬁcant amount of talent,
especially on defense, was
on Blair’s side, no one was
quite sure how good the team
would actually be.
“Truth be told, we’re a
hair better than I thought we
were going to be,” said McCabe, now in his 15th season.
“Somewhere along the line
they got the hockey bug —
playing in summer leagues,
going to camps, making
themselves upwardly mobile,
striving to basically improve
every aspect of their game —
and it’s translated into more
success for the team.”
Through seven games, the
Blazers boast a 5-1-1 record
in the MSHL with their only
loss coming against the team
ahead of them in the standings, the D.C. Stars (6-1-0).
Alongside Kronstadt, junior captain Sebastian Rubenstein has contributed a
signiﬁcant chunk of offensive
support with 10 goals and 11
assists (21 points).
But make no mistake, said
McCabe, this is far from a
team with one or two standout individuals who make
things work.
“This is probably the most
balanced team I’ve had,” McCabe said. “I’ve had better
hockey players in the past,

Montgomery Blair ice hockey coach Kevin McCabe talks to his team during periods on Friday.

BILL RYAN/THE GAZETTE

Montgomery Blair ice hockey player Sebastian Rubinstein skates against
Northwest on Friday.
but they can’t be on the ice
at all times. With this group,
I can take one line off the ice,
replace them with ﬁve more
guys and we’re not missing a
beat.”
In addition to Kronstadt
and Rubenstein, Kenny Johnson, Javy Lopez-Casertano, Ty
Wilson, Eddie Ilgenfritz and
Kristina Rexford all are part of
the junior class that has been
thrust into a leadership role
one year early.
“Our juniors are trying to
be there for the freshman like
the seniors have been there

for us in the past,” Rubenstein
said. “It’s different not having
any seniors, but it could work
to our advantage.”
After every game, Rubenstein is meticulous about
having a lengthy team chat to
break down what went well
and what needs improvement.
Whether it’s clearing the
puck out of the defensive end
or tightening positioning on
the power play, the team always has plenty to discuss.
“One of the things our
team has learned is that we

BILL RYAN/THE GAZETTE

kind of feel like we haven’t
played our best game yet
this year,” Rubenstein said.
“We’re trying to get better
each and every week and
hopefully we can keep it up.”
McCabe said while the
Blazers are strong defensively,
they can also ﬂy through the
neutral zone and play fast
when they need to. His biggest concern this preseason
was goaltending, which has
been addressed by the rapidly-improving Zastrow (4.71
GAA).
“He’s not Dominik Hasek
yet, but he’s athletic and
playing well enough for us to
win,” McCabe said.
Johnson, another member
of the talented junior class,
said he also didn’t expect
Blair to be quite this good at
the start of the season, but
also is aware of the opportunity ahead to create some
special memories if all goes
well.
“In the big games when
it’s close, we’re the people
that coach looks for to get us
out of those tough situations
and to get some goals up on
the board,” Johnson said. “I
don’t think having no seniors
holds us back at all. We’re out
there to play as a team and if
you go out there and play as
a team, the goals will come.”
Added McCabe: “It’s encouraging for me as a coach
to see that kind of intensity
and that kind of camaraderie
because it doesn’t come along
very often. If you play poker
long enough, you get dealt a
good hand. And as a coach,
I’ve been dealt a good hand.”
ncammarota@gazette.net

Bolted tightly a few feet above
the basketball hoops at Walt
Whitman High School are square,
black Daktronics shot clocks. As
for nearly every boys’ game, it remains blank, just a barely noticeable decoration above the hoop.
And that portends some very good
things for this year’s Vikings.
The Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association
has not yet adopted a shot clock
for boys’ basketball. Teams can
drag out possessions for as long as
they please, which has resulted in
some textbook, fundamental and
unselﬁsh basketball for the 9-3
Vikings.
During a critical 4A South
Division matchup with Richard
Montgomery on Jan. 8, the ninthranked Vikings drove and dished,
swung the ball around the perimeter and, ﬁnally, when all that
movement begat an open jumper
or layup, the opponents defense
thoroughly scrambled, the ball
went up. Forty-nine percent of
the time, the shot went in, and the
result was a 49-24 victory over the
then-No. 10 Rockets.
“We did a really good job staying patient, getting the shots we
wanted,” Vikings coach Chris Lun
said. “That’s one of the things we
stressed. We can’t let teams force
us into doing what they want
to do and [Jan. 8] we did a good
job doing what we wanted to do.
We were pretty patient tonight.
We didn’t have many turnovers,
didn’t force many bad shots.”
There is a drill that Whitman
runs in practice called the “Kansas drill.” It’s a game to 50. Each
pass in the offense is worth one,
a made basket is two, so quick
shots are more severely punished
than a real game situation where
points only come when the ball
goes through the hoop. The daily
repetition of Kansas drills has produced an uber-efﬁcient offense
that hovers around 50 percent
shooting while blowing teams out
by an average of 19.8 through their
ﬁrst nine wins.
“We’ve been really practicing
on offense being patient,” said
Riley Shaver, who scored a gamehigh 17 points against Richard
Montgomery. “By doing that, we
took them out of their rhythm and
it took them out of their game. We
just took the right shots.”
There are two oft-cited clichés
in sports: “defense wins championships,” and the ﬂip side to
that, “the best defense is a good
offense.” Lun has found a way
to combine the two, with a small

1905974

BY

Patience a virtue
for Whitman

TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE

Walt Whitman High School’s Riley
Shaver is a part of the boys’ basketball team’s success.

tweak: the best defense can be a
patient offense, which leads to
wins.
Lun has been coaching the
Vikings for a decade now. He has
seenwhathappenstohighschoolers when an opposing team runs
through their offensive sets for a
minute, 90 seconds, two minutes:
they want the ball back so they can
score. Defense isn’t glamorous,
and being on that side of the ball
is exhausting, arduous work. As
the Vikings wore down the Rockets through pass after pass, layup
after layup, Richard Montgomery
became more prone to hoisting
up quick, forced shots that rarely
found the net (the Rockets shot
just 9-of-44 from the ﬁeld) when
they had the ball in their hands.
“That’s the goal,” Lun said.
“We stress that because if teams
make us work, we come down
and we want to go get that quick
shot because we’re tired of playing
defense and then we’re playing
defense again. We’re not stall ball
but we’re being patient.”
Sophomore shooting guard
Kyle Depollar, a transfer from The
Heights and the team’s leading
scorer, recalled a time when the
Vikings were a little more liable to
take unadvisable shots. The ﬁrst
such occasion, the season-opener
against Georgetown Prep, wasn’t
entirely their fault because there
was a shot clock that maxed their
possessions at 35 seconds. The
second, a 52-47 loss to Rockville,
still stings a bit. The Vikings held
an 11-point lead in the fourth
quarter before taking the bait and
running with the Rams, diving
headlong into a fast-paced game
that ultimately led to their demise.
“We deﬁnitely learned from
that,” Depollar said. “We learned
that when we have a lead, we need
to be a lot more patient and just
win the game.”
Nine wins succeeded that
pair of opening losses, three by
30-point margins and another
three by at least 15. During that
run, only three teams broke into
the 50s, and none scored more
than 52.
tmewhirter@gazette.net

MOVIE REVIEW

&

The Gazette’s Guide to

Arts & Entertainment

A TOUGH, TRUE TALE

Dancers

SEAL team tragedy the focus of
brutal, but honorable action ﬁlm. Page B-9

www.gazette.net

|

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

|

Page B-5

Members of the visiting Dayton
Contemporary dance company
will perform in “Emergence,”
a program featuring original

DAYTON

FROM

works by CityDance resident
choreographer Robert Priore,
on Saturday and Sunday at the
CityDance Studio Theater at
Strathmore in North Bethesda.
GEEKWITHALENSPHOTOGRAPHY

BY

VIRGINIA TERHUNE
STAFF WRITER

A CityDance
choreographer
premieres piece for
renowned Ohio troupe
n

T H E

After graduating from Point Park University in Pittsburgh, choreographer Robert Priore spent a year dancing with Ohio’s
renowned Dayton Contemporary Dance
Company in Ohio.
Now it’s the company’s time to journey east and visit him for the ﬁrst time in
North Bethesda, where he is resident choreographer for the CityDance Conservatory at Strathmore.

F I L L M O R E

S I L V E R

The Dayton troupe will perform a
piece it commissioned from Priore as part
of “Emergence,” a program entirely choreographed by Priore, running Saturday
and Sunday at the CityDance Studio Theater at Strathmore.
“It’s my ﬁrst stab at creating a night
all by myself,” said Priore. “It’s all my vocabulary and my vision.”
Priore said he’s been working on
the program since August and initially
thought of dancing in it himself, but decided instead to step back and focus on
the big picture.
“I had wanted to dance, but I thought
if I wanted to really convey [what I want
to convey], I had better take myself out,”
he said.
The Dayton Contemporary Dance
Company was founded in 1968 by dancer
and future MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient Jeraldyne Blunden, who died in
1999. The company is presently run by her
daughter (Debbie Blunden-Diggs), Priore
said.
Priore danced with DCDC’s second
company for a year and also choreo-

S P R I N G

A rock-solid education
n

Young musicians ready
to rock this weekend
BY

CARA HEDGEPETH
STAFF WRITER

According to Laura Bollettino, executive director at the
School of Rock of Silver Spring,
the philosophy behind the unconventional music school is
“if you tell [children] they can
do something, then they think
they can and they do it.”
“You tell them, get on-stage
at The Fillmore and they say,
‘Yeah, why wouldn’t I get on
stage at The Fillmore?’” Bollettino said. “Any adult would be
paralyzed with fear.”
Students from the School of

Rock in Silver Spring will prove
Bollettino right on Sunday
when they take the stage at the
venue. The afternoon concert
will showcase musicians from
the school’s School of Rock 101
program, Performance Program, Adult Program, Silver
Spring School of Rock House
Band and special guest performers, Philadelphia-based
Swift Technique. There will be
a second show at Comet Ping
Pong in Washington, D.C., on
Jan. 26.
School of Rock was
founded in 1998 by Paul Green.
There are currently more than
15,000 students enrolled in 125
schools across seven countries.

graphed two pieces for the troupe, which
encouraged him to keep at it.
In “Emergence” there are four new
works and six others that have been performed before, said Piore, who is presenting the show with a mix of Dayton dancers
and current and former students of the
Conservatory.

See DANCERS, Page B-9

n Tickets: $25 for
general admission,
$20 for university
students
n For information:
301-581-5204,
Citydance.net

The Capitol Arts Network will continue to spotlight “Its Own,” to Jan. 25 as part of an inaugural
resident artists’ exhibition at the gallery in Rockville’s
Twinbrook district. The January show is designed to
be the ﬁrst in a series of periodic exhibits highlighting the work of its more than 50 resident artists.
Thirty-seven painters, sculptors, photographers and
additional artisans already working in Capitol Arts
Network studios are slated to take part, as well as
newcomers who will become residents of the organization’s new 16-studio annex in January. For more
information, visit www.capitolartsnetwork.com.

Crank it up!

LISA ELMALEH

Appalachian singers Anna Roberts-Gevalt and
Elizabeth LaPrelle have revived the traditional
art of “crankies,” and incorporated it into
their show which combines ﬁddle and banjo
music, ballads, harmony singing, storytelling
and ﬂatfoot dancing.

Audiences are invited to discover “Crankies” during an Appalachian music workshop and concert
hosted by Elizabeth LaPrelle and Anna Roberts-Gevalt on Saturday. The workshop is scheduled for 4-6
p.m., with the concert to follow at 8 p.m. at Seeker’s
Church, 276 Carroll Street, NW, Washington, DC.,
across the street from the Takoma Station on Metro’s Red Line. Long before the advent of YouTube,
“crankies” created the effect of an animate tapestry
via hand-cranked illustrations on a roll of fabric.
Roberts-Gevalt and LapRelle incorporate the lost
art into their concert, combining ﬁddle and banjo
music, ballads, harmonizing, storytelling and ﬂatfoot
dancing. Tickets to either the workshop or the concert are $15 for members, or $20 for general admission. Combination tickets are $25 for members, $30
for general admission. Visit www.fsgw.org.

Gabriela Martinez to
perform at Strathmore
Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Martinez will perform
Bach’s “Concerto No. 1” with the National Philharmonic,
under the direction of associate conductor Victoria Gau, at
8 p.m. Saturday at the Music Center at Strathmore in North
Bethesda. Also on the program are Mozart’s “Divertimento
K. 136 in D Major” and Schubert’s “Mass No. 2 in G Major.”
One of Bach’s most popular concertos, “Piano Concerto
No. 1” was one of the ﬁrst composed for the keyboard.
Martinez — orchestral soloist, chamber musician, recitalist
— has performed in venues ranging from the Tokyo International Music Festival to Carnegie Hall. A free pre-concert
lecture will be offered at 6:45 p.m. in the Concert Hall. For
more information, visit www.strathmore.org.

MONICA TREJO

Pianist Gabriela Martinez will perform
Bach’s “Concerto No. 1” on Saturday
at the Music Center at Strathmore.

Jazz ramblers
GURUJEET KHALSA

The Dixieland Express will return to Damascus’ Music Cafe from 8-10 p.m. Saturday. Founded in 1999, the Express has long

Photoworks will exhibit “So Much Depends,” images from award-winning photographer Gurujeet Khalsa, to Feb. 17 at
the Glen Echo gallery.

“So Much Depends,” images from award-winning photographer Gurujeet Khalsa, continues to
Feb. 17 at the Photoworks Gallery at Glen Echo Park. Featuring photographs from locations as diverse
as Belize and the Paciﬁc Northwest, Khalsa captures an inner landscape that transcends place. Exhibit
hours are 1-4 p.m. Saturday and 1-8 p.m. Sunday, or by appointment. For more information, visit
www.glenechophotoworks.org.

delivered traditional New Orleans-style
Dixieland jazz to fans throughout the Washington, D.C., area, performing at events
such as the Kensington Summer Concert
Series and alongside contemporaries the
Potomac River Jazz Club. The Music Cafe
is located at 26528 Ridge Road, Damascus.
For more information, visit www.
the-music-cafe.com.

THE GAZETTE

Wednesday, January 15, 2014 p

Page B-7

‘I have a dream’: Diverse group of performers gather for MLK celebration
Artists honor icon with 20th
anniversary tribute celebration

n

BY

CARA HEDGEPETH
STAFF WRITER

On Monday, the Montgomery
County Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Commemorative Committee invites
2,000 area residents to honor the
Civil Rights icon with the Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., Birthday Tribute and
Celebration.
The 90-minute concert marks
the 20th anniversary of the event
and will be held at the Music Center
at Strathmore. The afternoon will
feature a diverse group of performers
and will award honorees who serve
their community.
ABC 7 News anchor Leon Harris
will serve as master of ceremonies.
The event will feature local talent,
including Washington, D.C., saxophonist Brian Lenair. Lenair, who
performed at the tribute two years
ago, is one of 11 acts scheduled for
the celebration.

“We held a talent search back in
October,” said Rachel Reed, program
chair for the event.
Reed added that the panel of
three judges was in search of performers who they felt were in line
with the tribute celebration’s theme:
“celebrate, serve, remember.”
“[We wanted] ﬁnalists that we
felt ... had something that related to

Martin Luther King’s purpose about
serving and giving and about being
together.”
The afternoon’s lineup alone is a
realization of King’s dream.
“It does a great job of honoring him because there are so many
different races, so many different
creeds coming together,” said Lenair.
“It’s very diverse. It has all different
types of singing groups.”
Lenair, who released his smooth
jazz CD, “Eye of the Storm,” two
years ago, said he will most likely
play some original music, a gospel
song and a rendition of the Beatles’
“Come Together.”
Other performances include a
song from a group of hearing and
deaf students at Cashell Elementary
School who will sing and sign a song
dedicated to King. Students from the
Washington Dunhuang Guzheng
Academy will perform on the guzheng, a traditional Chinese string
instrument.

Saxophonist
Brian Lenair
is just
one of the
performers
who will
appear at
the Martin
Luther King,
Jr. Birthday
Tribute
Celebration
on Monday.
ROY COX STUDIOS

Pitching in, helping out
Musicians sing Monday at
beneﬁt for Garber family of
Bethesda

n

BY

VIRGINIA TERHUNE
STAFF WRITER

Local musicians are turning out
in force to assist one of their own at
a fundraising concert on Monday at
the Mansion at Strathmore.
Presented by The 9 Songwriters
Series, the concert is for guitarist
Ted Garber of Bethesda, a singer/
songwriter of blues, rock and Americana, whose wife, Rebecca, is recovering from cancer surgery.
She is also undergoing chemotherapy after recently giving birth
prematurely to their daughter, Sydney.
“I think in music communities
when a fellow co-worker gets sick,
people do their beneﬁts,” said coorganizer Justin Trawick of Arlington, Va. “It’s the way we know how
to help.”
Founder of The 9 Songwriters
Series, guitarist Trawick is organizing the event with banjoist Cathy
Fink of the Grammy-winning Cathy
& Marcy [Marxer] duo from Kensington.
Joining them will be Grammy
Lifetime Achievement Award-winner Tom Paxton and blues rocker
Patty Reese, along with Songwriter
regulars Jason Ager and Tiffany
Thompson, who are performing at
Strathmore for the ﬁrst time.
Also part of the lineup are Christylez Bacon and Maureen Andary,
former artists in residence at Strathmore, and Grammy-winner Jon
Carroll, one of their mentors during
their residencies.
Carroll and Fink were also mentors to Garber, an artist in residence
during the 2011-2012 season.

Fink said she has performed
twice for the Songwriter series,
which changes its lineup for every
show.
During concerts, musicians
each perform solo and also back
each other up.
“It’s like a very fun whirlwind,”
said Fink. “You have an extremely
short period of time to present your
song and collaborate with other
singers and writers.”
Strathmore, the performers and
the sound engineer are donating
their space, time and efforts for the
Garber concert, she said.
There will also be a silent auction with items such as tickets to
Strathmore events, music-related
gear, a guitar track donated by a
well-known musician and possibly some donated studio time, said
Fink.
Proceeds will help cover the
costs of hospital and outpatient
treatments, medical support and
general living expenses that include
long hotel stays near Johns Hopkins
Hospital in Baltimore.
“[Ted] is cutting back on his
shows so he can be present with [his
wife and daughter],” Fink said.
vterhune@gazette.net

BLACKROCK CENTER FOR THE ARTS

Guitarist Jason Trawick (second from left) of Arlington, Va., founded The 9 Songwriters Series in 2008. The group of performers sing solo and
also collaborate for concerts, with lineups that change for each show.

Keeping time with The 9
Singers collaborate,
go solo, at BlackRock on
Saturday
n

BY

VIRGINIA TERHUNE
STAFF WRITER

PHOTO BY STEPHANIE POTTER

Local musicians associated with The 9 Songwriter Series are donating their time on
Monday at the Mansion at Strathmore for a concert to beneﬁt guitarist Ted Garber
(pictured), whose wife, Rebecca, is battling cancer.

Nine different performers for the price of one.
That’s what you get with
a ticket to The 9 Songwriters
Series concert at the BlackRock Center for the Arts on
Saturday in Germantown.
“As singer-songwriters,
we’re always struggling to get
out of that bar atmosphere
and get into larger venues,”
said Justin Trawick of Arlington, Va., who ﬁrst developed
the idea in 2008.
“It’s tough, if you don’t
have the drawing power
alone,” he said. “But with a
combination in a collective,
you have the influence to
pack the room.”
Performing Saturday will
be guitarist Trawick, Margot
MacDonald, Ryan Walker,

ON STAGE
Adventure Theatre, “Miss Nelson is Missing,” Jan. 17 to March

Andy Zipf, Amanda Lee,
Bradley Rhodes, Victoria Vox,
Justin Jones and Don Kim.
“We’reallveryprofessional
in our own right,” said Trawick
about the range of music offered to audiences — everything from folk and Americana
to pop, R&B and jazz.
The nature of the show
depends on the lineup, which
varies with every concert.
“It’s always original, and
it’s fun,” he said.
Each performer sings
several songs, with the sequence of singers randomly
determined by picking
names out of a hat.
“When they’re on stage,
they can do whatever they
want,” Trawick said.
Performers may also ask
other singers to lend backup
on instruments or vocals.
“It’s very relaxed,” said
Cathy Fink, of the Cathy &
Marcy duo, which has performed twice with the series.
“There’s a good vibe from
[the performers] and the au-

dience,” she said.
There’s also a spontaneous feeling about the Songwriters shows, because the
performers don’t have much
time to rehearse with one another.
“It’s sort of spur of the
moment, and we ﬂy by the
seat of our pants,” Trawick
said.
The concerts offer the
performers a sometimes rare
chance to work with other
musicians, he said.
Focusing just on developing your own career can
be “a lonely business,” Trawick said.
“You can get very independent,” he said. “You enjoy the collaboration with
other artists.”
Trawick has duplicated
his local success by tapping
into his growing network of
singer-songwriters to present The 9 concerts up and
down the East Coast and in
California.
“I’ve got them in my

The family is celebrating
when a mysterious inspector
comes to call. It becomes clear
that they are implicated in a
young women’s death. Join us
for an exciting whodunnit
that will keep you guessing
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iPhone, and they’re organized by city,” he said.
By performing in the series, musicians help themselves by gaining broader
exposure in a larger venue
while helping others to also
develop their careers.”
“It’s good for me, and
good for a lot of people in the
area,” he said.
vterhune@gazette.net
244-644-1100, www.roundhousetheatre.org.
Silver Spring Stage, “The
Complete Works of William
Shakespeare (Abridged),” To Feb.
1, Woodmoor Shopping Center,
10145 Colesville Road, Silver
Spring, see website for show times,
www.ssstage.org.
The Writer’s Center, Cynthia
Atkins and Nathan Leslie, 2-4 p.m.
Jan. 26, 4508 Walsh Street, Bethesda,
301-654-8664, www.writer.org.

Never underestimate the
importance of living in a small
town.
Sure, the excitement from
the everyday hustle and bustle
isn’t quite as big, but that only
leaves more time for people to
interact, tell stories and fall in
love.
Such is the case in John
Cariani’s play, “Almost, Maine,”
which is being performed by the
Upcounty Theatre at the BlackRock Center for the Arts in Germantown.
The play features nine vignettes all taking place in the
enchanted little town of Almost,
Maine. Each little story explores
love — both gained and lost.
Denise Smith, who plays
Rhonda, said she originally had
never heard of the play, but
quickly fell in love with both the
script and her character.
“[Rhonda’s] best friend in
the whole world is Dave and
they’ve been really good friends
for a long, long time,” Smith
said. “Rhonda’s kind of a tomboy and I really felt when I read
the script for the ﬁrst time that
you’re supposed to believe that
maybe she’s a lesbian. But she
loves Dave. … You ﬁnd out she’s
never kissed a guy, she doesn’t
know how and she just likes guy
things.”
Director Matti Jane Dickenson had the idea to do “Almost,
Maine,” and brought the suggestion to the Upcounty Theatre
board. Dickenson, according to
Smith, came prepared by offering the board different ways to
do the show spending varying
amounts of money.
“The president, Jeff Smith,
was pretty intrigued,” Smith
said. “… Matti presented it so
well. She had schematics and

everything planned out. … Matti
is absolutely wonderful and
young and fresh with a lot of experience from college and some
post-grad work.”
“Almost, Maine,” is the
second show Dickenson has
directed. Her ﬁrst was a threewoman production with no set
pieces and the actors remaining
on stage throughout. Needless
to say, with a cast of 15 and a full
crew, “Almost, Maine,” is a bit
different.
“I think it’s such a perfect
show for this company and the
space and time that we have,”
Dickenson said. “We just ﬁnished the holidays. We’re getting
ready to go into Valentine’s Day
and it’s a perfect time for it. We
have this perfectly ﬁne frigid air
that helps set the mood!”
Smith said she has really
enjoyed working with the cast
and playing Rhonda might have
opened her eyes a little.
“Playing Rhonda has helped
me personally explore parts of
me that I think needed some exploring and maybe nurturing,”
Smith said. “Rhonda’s a [tough
girl] and [I’m] exploring that part
of [me] and I kind of want to see
that just a little more.”
For Dickenson, she hopes
the audiences walks away
knowing unexpected things can
sometimes happen and they can
be good.
“You have to not take things
too seriously,” Dickenson said.
“You have to have fun with
love.”
wfranklin@gazette.net

UPCOUNTY THEATRE

Thomas Gower as Chad and Jacob Lucas as Randy rehearse a scene for
“Almost, Maine.”

DANCERS

Continued from Page B-5
The Conservatory grads,
now in college, will perform a
piece about “what happens after
a person [dies] and what happens with the people still there,”
said Priore.
Also scheduled is a solo
about the feeling of freedom
after a long struggle, and a duet
about love.
“It’s about finding a love
who will be there no matter
what, and how that can happen
unexpectedly,” he said.
The longest work in “Emergence” is a five-section piece
called “Os Padroes,” a Portuguese word for patterns.
It was inspired by the work
of Dayton artist Willis “Bing”
Davis, whom Priore got to know
while performing in Ohio.
“It came out of a collabora-

tion between myself and Bing,”
Priore said.
Looking at one of Davis’
paintings called “Ancestral
Spirit Dance,” he began to hear
the music of Brazil and the Caribbean in his head and choreographed the piece with that in
mind.
The dance is set to music by
Grateful Dead drummer Mickey
Hart, Indian tabla master Zakir
Hussain, and the Belgian/African vocal ensemble Zap Mama.
“There are four dancers from
Dayton, four alumni and three
current students in it,” he said.
Priore said he is very glad
to be hosting a ﬁrst-time visit
by the Dayton dancers to CityDance.
“It’s like a dream come true
to have both [companies] working together,” he said. “It’s awesome.”
vterhune@gazette.net

JASON GARCIA IGNACIO

CityDance will present “Emergence,” a program featuring original work by its
resident choreographer Robert Priore, on Saturday and Sunday at the CityDance Studio Theater at Strathmore in North Bethesda.

Page B-9

AT THE MOVIES

‘Her’ makes a perfect love connection
BY

MICHAEL PHILLIPS

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

A delicate, droll masterwork, writer-director Spike
Jonze’s “Her” sticks its neck
out, all the way out, asserting
that what the world needs now
and evermore is love, sweet
love. Preferably between humans, but you can’t have everything all the time.
It tells a love story about a
forlorn writer, whose ﬁrm —
BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.
com — provides busy, digitally
preoccupied customers with
personalized correspondence
crafted by professionals like
Theodore Twombly, played
by refreshingly rage-free and
wholly inspired Joaquin Phoenix. Theodore is smarting
from a marital breakup he’s
not ready to process, legally
or emotionally. He has a ﬁlmmaker friend, played by Amy
Adams, living in his building in
a Los Angeles of the very near
future, perhaps 30 years from
now. This is a city whose interiors are dominated by reds and
pinks and salmon tones, as if
the entire culture had taken an
oath to view itself through rosecolored glasses.
Theodore buys the latest
new gadget, the iPhone of its
day. It is an advanced “operating system” that is simply a
voice. Not a face. Not a body.
Not a person, but a carefully
rendered collection of so much
intelligence, so many programmed human traits and
quirks and speech patterns
and interests and desires that,

well, why not? Why not call her
your girlfriend and take it from
there? No grief; no apparent
emotional neediness; no accusing glances, like the ones
we see in beautifully rendered
ﬂashback, showing Theodore’s
life and times with his wife,
portrayed by Rooney Mara.
I love this ﬁlm, and I’m one
of the most technophobic and
least gadget-centric people on
the planet. It’s unusually witty
science ﬁction and it’s unfashionably sincere, as well as a
work of such casual visual inspiration that a second viewing
of “Her” feels more like a ﬁrst.
This is the fourth feature from Jonze, and the ﬁrst
in which he directs his own
script. Jonze has learned well
from his earlier work. He met
his poetic screwball match in
screenwriter Charlie Kaufman
for “Being John Malkovich”
and “Adaptation,” and his
more recent and ﬁercely divisive “Where the Wild Things
Are” sent half the audience into
emotional shock and the other
half into emotional shock followed by immense gratitude.
“Her” is a more even-toned
work, but not in a blanded-out
way. The high-waisted beltless

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore in the romantic drama “Her,” directed by
Spike Jonze.
pants of the future alone make
this ﬁlm worth seeing.
Jonze works with some
creatively fabulous designers,
among them production designer K.K. Barrett and cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema,
creating a futuristic L.A. where
everyone seems a little calmer
but a little more isolated. The
earbuds in so many ears may
as well be space dividers.
Theodore’s path to Samantha,
the operating system with the
voice of Scarlett Johansson, involves a blind date with a gorgeous but touchy and insecure
woman (Olivia Wilde, mercurial and striking) and a lot of
blissfully easygoing debrieﬁng
with Theodore’s platonic-ish
soul mate, the Adams character, rendered with unusual
emotional transparency and
the lightest of touches. Phoenix is remarkable as Theodore;
he never rolls over for an obvious laugh. Sitting alone in his

apartment, playing the latest immersive video game, he
paws the air like a chipmunk
as his gaming avatar burrows
into tunnels. It’s a sad but truly
funny image, and the ﬁlm’s full
of such double-sided gems.
Where does the love story
take Theodore and his new
thrill? Better you ﬁnd out for
yourself. Jonze’s truisms sometimes have a somewhat predigested ring to them (“The heart
expands in size the more you
love”), but as Theodore and
Samantha reach a relationship
crossroads, the ﬁlm becomes
more and more amazing in its
high-wire act. It is a small ﬁlm
made by enormous talents
working in harmony. Jonze’s
ﬁrst solo script is topical in the
right ways, and forward-thinking in the right ways. We’re
living in this enticingly lonely
world, more or less, already.
But does Siri really understand
your needs?

Berg, Wahlberg honor story of SEAL team tragedy
BY

MICHAEL PHILLIPS
CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Roughly half of “Lone Survivor” is a standard-issue Hollywood treatment of a recent,
bloody and, in human terms,
tragic 2005 Navy SEAL mission
to eliminate an al-Qaida operative in the Afghanistan mountain region of Hindu Kush. But
the other half — the hour or so of
writer-director Peter Berg’s ﬁlm
dealing specifically with what
happens when four men are cut
off in Taliban country, scrambling under fire — is strong,
gripping stuff, free of polemics,
nerve-wracking in the extreme.
This is a straight, hard,
do-or-die scenario, vividly recreated by Berg. He adapts the
best-seller “Lone Survivor: The
Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10,” written
by Marcus Luttrell and Patrick
Robinson.
Mark Wahlberg plays Luttrell. His fellow SEALs are por-

trayed by Taylor Kitsch, Ben
Foster and Emile Hirsch, with
Eric Bana as their commander
back at Bagram Air Field, monitoring what becomes a terrible
ambush. Berg’s movie gets
through its introductions efﬁciently, though without much
in the way of character detail.
We know from the start who
lives and who dies; Wahlberg’s
Luttrell provides the voice-over
at the outset, while we see him
being saved by a rescue team.
The heart of the ﬁlm is pure
crisis and response. Kitsch
plays Mike Murphy, the special ops team leader; Foster,
the communications specialist Matthew “Axe” Axelson.
Hirsch’s Danny Dietz, gunner’s
mate, completes the quartet,
dispatched by helicopter to a
remote mountainside perch
near the village where their target has been spotted.
And then it goes wrong.
They’re ambushed, and for the
better part of “Lone Survivor”
we see them shot, thrown down

boulder-strewn inclines, ﬁght
back, attempt to regain a foothold. The actors know what’s
required of them. You wouldn’t
call an actor such as Foster an
underplayer, but Berg manages
to get all his actors in the same
movie and keep conventional
histrionics to a minimum. The
situations that make up “Lone
Survivor” are harrowing to begin with; they don’t need goosing.
Berg shot the film in the
mountains and sound stages of
New Mexico, and the size of the
picture feels right for the scope
of this true-life story. The adaptation doesn’t make room for
much beyond the kinetic horror
of the ambush. When Luttrell
meets a local villager (Ali Suliman) who harbors the American from the Taliban, the movie
takes a couple of shortcuts back
into Hollywood territory. Sometimes, things that really happened have a way of seeming
slightly phony on screen.
At its best, though, “Lone

Survivor” accomplishes its mission, which is to respect these
men, dramatize what they went
through and let the more troubling matters of moral consequence trickle in where, and
how, they may. (In one tense sequence the men debate the fate
of goat herders they encounter.)
Wahlberg remains one of our
most reliable and least actorly of
movie stars, innately macho but
vulnerable enough to seem like a
human being caught in an inhuman situation. Berg’s ﬁlm pays
attention to every setback, every moment lost or won on that
mountain.

ROCK

Continued from Page B-5
Bollettino and her husband Jeff opened two
School of Rock locations in Virginia: one in
Vienna in July 2006 and one in Ashburn
in July 2007. The two took over the Silver
Spring location in September 2007.
“My husband and I were both involved
in corporate America and as our kids were
getting older, we realized we were missing
out on a lot,” Bollettino said. “This was a
unique concept … we really saw it made
[students] really good, really fast.”
School of Rock is a performance-based
music school with an emphasis on fun.
“We always joke around and say, ‘Don’t
tell the kids we’re a serious music school,”
Bollettino said.
But School of Rock means business.
Students are ﬁrst enrolled in School
of Rock 101, teaching basic skills through
45-minute private lessons and 90-minute
group sessions. Students then move on
to the Performance Program, which consists of 45-minute private lessons and a ﬁnal show. The students rehearse for three
hours, once a week in preparation for the
end-of-season show at the end of the 12-13
week session.
Teachers at the school come from a
range of backgrounds.
“We use a combination of teachers,”
Bollettino said. “ … [some] are gigging musicians, some have degrees, some have just
a lot of experience.”
But the headmaster is studio manager
Forrest Hainline IV.
“I like to think of myself as the principal of School of Rock,” Hainline said. “I
promote a culture that is fun and safe and
comfortable and inspiring for students.”
A Montgomery County native and a
graduate of the Landon School in Bethesda,
Hainline has been with School of Rock of
Silver Spring for one and a half years.

LAURA BOLLETTINO

Gabby Chuke, 12 and a student at the School of Rock, performs in downtown Silver Spring.
“I really never thought of teaching,”
said Hainline, who graduated from Augustana College in Illinois. “Even two years
into it I never thought I was qualiﬁed, but
people kept asking me to come back.”
On top of teaching private lessons,
Hainline also leads students in the Performance Program and has prepared all of the
students performing in Saturday’s concert.
“We give them song assignments …”
Hainline said. “Students come in once a
week for three hours and start chipping
away.”
According to Hainline, Saturday’s
concert, which is divided into two parts,
“What’s His Name Is?!” and “Who’s That
Grrrl?!” is a celebration of songs about
guys and girls. The lineup includes Simon
& Garfunkel’s “Cecilia,” “Hey Jude,” by the
Beatles and “Sheena is a Punk Rocker” by
the Ramones.
Though School of Rock’s emphasis is

obviously on the music, both Bollettino
and Hainline said the program helps its
students develop skills applicable to other
areas of their lives as well.
“Part of being an artist and being a
gigging musician is you have to do promotion,” Bollettino said. “Selling tickets,
making posters.”
School of Rock students have vowed to
sell 400 tickets on their own for Saturday’s
performance.
Bollettino added that School of Rock
also builds self-assurance in its students.
“One of the things I’ve seen over and
over again, by getting on stage and pushing
through your fears, you gain conﬁdence,”
Bollettino said. “The feeling of accomplishment and ‘I did it’ and ‘I learned this hard
piece of music,’ that can translate to any
obstacle they’ll face in the future.”
chedgepeth@gazette.net

Page B-10

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THE GAZETTE

Wednesday, January 15, 2014 p

Check the weekly newspaper for unique specials from various dealers
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Wednesday, January 15, 2014 p

Classifieds

Page B-11

Call 301-670-7100 or email class@gazette.net

SILVER SPRING

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Provide non-medical care and companionship for
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Firm located in Rockville MD has two open positions. Driver qualified driver with CDL- B license to deliver materials to customer
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The A.R.T Institute of Washington Inc. has an
immediate opening for an Andrologist in
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biological or chemical science pref. US
citizenship req. Previous andrology experience
&/or background check for work in a DOD facility
is beneficial. Will train a qualified applicant. Work
schedule requires some weekends & holiday
work. EOE
The successful candidate must be detail-oriented
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who has the drive and enthusiasm for patient
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Let Gazette Careers
help you find that
next position in your
LOCAL area.

Montgomery County Public Schools
Division of Maintenance
NOW HIRING

Get Connected

Skilled Trades

Driver & Warehouse

Lab Technician Andrologist

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Interested candidates should complete a profile and submit a
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All applicants must also call (301) 279-3291 to schedule an
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GC3178

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Wednesday, January 15, 2014 p

Page B-13

Careers
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Real Estate

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